SF's violent crime rate is low compared to most other cities. There's a fair bit of property crime (theft, burglary, etc) though, and drug usage, and that perhaps makes people feel unsafe.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francis...

The thing is you go to google news, you search Houston violence, which is significantly more dangerous, perhaps the most dangerous big city in the country in terms of violent crime per capita per the above article, and you don't get articles on how terribly violent it is. Houston of course is in a conservative state, SF is a liberal lgbtq+ friendly city where former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is from, so it's fun to act like the city is horrible. The city is not horrible, though the poverty of folks here is making things worse. We aren't building enough housing, wages aren't increasing at the rate that rent is, so we get homeless people, because that's how not being able to afford rent works.

Obviously I don't want there to be any violent crime anywhere, including here in San Francisco. Still it seems far more likely this store is closing for economic reasons unrelated to worker safety. I bet the investor call they do when they release earnings will actually provide a better look at things.

Incidentally we have a pretty good idea of the factors that affect violent crime rates and what to do about it, which is mostly investment in places and people.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/want-to-reduce-violence-i...