With rising crime rates, restaurants and grocery stores are revising their operations, including making changes to store hours and spending more on security.
Some are even closing stores entirely, as Starbucks recently announced that it’s closing 16 of its U.S. stores after workers reported facing various challenges and disruptions, including situations related to drug use.
As The Wall Street Journal wrote Sunday (July 17), there are reports that more stores will likely be closing. Interim Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said that while the stores were profitable, the closures had to do with employee safety concerns.
“We are facing things that the stores weren’t built for,” Schultz said, per the report. “We are listening to our people and closing stores.”
Schultz added that local governments should be doing more to fight crime, including helping with mental illness issues, to bolster safety efforts.
Starbucks is not the only business to face these issues. Casual dining chain Noodles has been experiencing drug use in its bathrooms, per the release, and has been training employees how to respond to those situations.
Meanwhile, supermarket chain Kroger has also said there has been an increase in organized theft, which has reportedly put pressure on its profit margins for the first time ever.
The report noted that food establishments and customers have been airing more grievances about the increase in crime since people started going out more after the quarantine period of 2020.
According to the report, 44% of the adults surveyed said they were more afraid to be in public because of the increase in violence. That was an increase from 36% of adults saying this in March, per a survey from food service research firm Lisa W. Miller & Associates.
In May, PYMNTS wrote that Starbucks was working on turning the attention away from on-premises spaces to boost digital order fulfillment.
See also: Starbucks Shifts Focus From In-Store Experience to Digital Efficiency
The coffee chain has over 34,000 locations around the world, and at the time, leaders said on a call with analysts that the company is looking at stepping up its tech investment.
“Going forward, we will … be making significant investments to extend our digital capabilities and deepen our digital connection to customers and the emotional attachment our customers have to the Starbucks brand,” Schultz said at the time. “Returns on our digital investments are consistently among the highest returns we generate.”
For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has named the former director of its Whistleblower Office, Brian Young, as its director of enforcement.
The appointment was announced Friday (Feb. 14) by CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham, according to a CFTC press release. Young had been serving in an acting capacity since Jan. 22.
“He is a fearless leader that will build an even more impressive enforcement program that will stay true to the CFTC’s mission to protect the American public from fraudsters and scammers,” Pham said in the release. “I am confident that under Brian’s leadership, the CFTC will expand and scale our resources to help more victims than ever before and ensure the integrity of our markets in the name of justice.”
Young joined the CFTC as director of its Whistleblower Office in 2024, according to the release. During his first year in that role, Young oversaw a team that achieved an all-time high number of annual dispositions of whistleblower award applications.
Prior to joining the agency, Young was with the Department of Justice for nearly 20 years, most recently as acting director of litigation for the Antitrust Division, the release said.
Before that, Young served in various roles in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division, including chief of the Fraud Section’s Litigation Unit, per the release.
While at the Department of Justice, he successfully tried criminal fraud and manipulation cases in the CFTC’s markets, according to the release.
“I want to thank Acting Chairman Pham for her confidence in me and for her commitment to continuing the CFTC’s aggressive efforts to protect our global commodity markets from fraud, manipulation and other abusive practices,” Young said in the release.
The White House said in a Wednesday press release that it sent to the Senate nominations for Brian Quintenz to be chairman of the CFTC and a commissioner of the CFTC for a term expiring April 13, 2029.
Quintenz is a former commissioner of the CFTC and now works for the cryptocurrency unit at venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, PYMNTS reported Wednesday (Feb. 12).
The commission is expected to gain new powers over the cryptocurrency sector.