REI to close only Portland store, citing break-ins, theft | Hacker News Reader

REI to close only Portland store, citing break-ins, theft

oregonlive.com

24 pointsfortran7717 comments

I lived and worked in Portland for five years, and have been traveling back and forth recently. The downtown area is pretty sad to see post-COVID. Pretty much lawlessness rules the streets and every once in a while, a little bit of action takes place [1]. I don't know what the right answer is but many of my Portland friends have left the area citing crime and open drug use as reasons. It sucks because Portland was such an amazing place to be in.

[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2023/04/portland-police-cle...

"Only" Portland store is kind of a non-sequitur. Technically correct, but the metro has three other stores within about 15 miles. It was a nice downtown location though with the draw being a multitude of shops in a small area. The biggest loss will be the downtown population, tourist foot-traffic (though it is a ways from 'downtown'), and NE-Portland/Vancouver access to their stores will be reduced.

Probably also have to consider the relative cost of the property there in the Pearl district. This was a large store, two levels, with a big open (wasted) space on the second floor, plus a rock climbing tower eating a corner. They also have 3 floors of the parking structure next-door available to customers.

Along with the labor concerns mentioned in other comments. Break-ins were probably a pretty small part of the consideration, and something that could've been mitigated if the store were otherwise worth keeping open.

> "Only" Portland store is kind of a non-sequitur. Technically correct, but the metro has three other stores within about 15 miles.

Within 10 miles, actually.

It seems similar to the reporting on Walmart closing "all" of its Portland stores. That's 2 stores, leaving 9 others (4 of which are Walmart Supercenters) within 10 miles and 14 others (6 Supercenters) within 15 miles.

Media literacy time, folks! Does the corporation have an incentive to lie about its reasons for closing this place?

> An update to our story on the REI closure: OB has learned that workers at the Portland store were actively working to unionize in recent months.

https://twitter.com/OregonBusiness/status/164849236952708300...

Alternatively, you can take this time to contribute to our lovely website's Weekly Homeless Hate Hour. I know how I'll be spending my time! Do you?

Either way, a smart move by REI.

Empathy for the homeless does nothing. Those people need to be in asylums or jail. Society depends on everyone following the rules.

> Media literacy time, folks! Does the corporation have an incentive to lie about its reasons for closing this place?

You might have had a point, if it was some regular company and everything was going fine at the location; but REI is a co-op, and three break-ins in a week (including a car-ramming) is not a reasonable environment to operate in.

Media literacy doesn't mean applying some rough heuristic that the "true" motive is the most selfish/embarrassing spin you can dig up.

REI is a customer owned co-op with an elected board not too dissimilar to many public corporations. Employees don't get particularly strong representation here. When I've followed the elections they tend to be corporate types running. There tended to be a focus on conservation and other outdoorsy-type related values, but co-op employees don't hold any special status in the governance structure.

> The company said its theft problem came to a head last November, when a car crashed through the glass front doors of REI’s Pearl District store on Black Friday. It was the store’s third break-in in a week.

I haven't been to Portland since a couple years before COVID. I imagine it's really disgusting downtown. Smelled like piss and I had to walk through junkie camps last time I was there

Both Seattle and Portland are basically homeless junkie camps.

I lived in Seattle for 12 years and left in 2010. I went back a few years later to visit and it looked like the homeless population had doubled in the time since. It's honestly gross how bad it is. The city has so many problems and no idea whatsoever how to solve them.

Anecdotally speaking, there are parts of LA that are trending just as bad.

Taking it all together this seems to be a pervasive issue in larger west-coast cities?

You're being downvoted, but you're not wrong. I was in Portland for a week each in 2017 and 2018. Sure there were a lot of homeless on the streets, marijuana smoke was in the air, but the downtown area was still very nice.

I went back in March 2022 and it was completely different.

I hadn't seen shit on the sidewalk my first two trips -- it was on every other block this time.

Dozens of stores still boarded up, most of which I imagine had closed during the 2020 protests. Graffiti everywhere.

I won't be making a trip back.

You don't board up stores for "protests"

Worth noting: Lots of retail store openings & closings happen every week. If this one didn't have a "Portland" hot button attached to it, it would have less-than-zero news value at the national and probably state levels.

Read the article and REI's official statement before you weigh in. This was from a local Portland newspaper, so what else would they talk about, and the statements about crime come directly from REI's statement.

I did read it. I agree that it is perfectly legit news in Portland, and plausibly in Oregon.

But I live in Michigan, and read enough of my local papers to be aware of local retail openings & closings. I notice that zero of those ever appear in national news, or among HN submissions. Similar for unfortunate situations in MI being well-covered by the "ideologically inclined" national and overseas press. The last thing in MI that I can recall getting such attention was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

Reply on news.ycombinator.com