Aside from killing quality of life and people, crime in major cities is also killing businesses, and potentially even the creativity of our future society.
Jeffrey’s Toys says that it is the oldest toy store in San Francisco. It opened in 1938 and shifted to exclusively selling toys in 1953. The store didn’t just brighten the lives of children whose parents purchased toys there, though; animators for the original Toy Story used the store for inspiration on their way to creating one of the most iconic movies of all time.
Now, the store is closing. Aside from the effects of online shopping, the deterioration of San Francisco has proven to be too much for the legendary store to handle. Between the exorbitant cost of living and running a business in San Francisco, the city’s downtown area has been overrun with crime and open-air drug use. Jeffrey’s Toys isn’t the first store to determine that the cost of staying open downtown was too steep, and it probably won’t be the last.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
This is one of the many, many costs of tolerating crime. The closures of businesses don’t just make lives harder for residents, who are stuck in food deserts without grocery stores or who must spend more time buying everyday products like deodorant because stores lock everything up to protect from shoplifting. Who knows what would have become of Toy Story or animated films had crime forced Jeffrey’s Toys to shut its doors permanently back in the 1990s?
The level of cultural decay caused by pro-criminal policies could have cost children a beloved film franchise that changed children’s films forever. We don’t know what it is costing us now, as San Francisco watches business after business close their doors for good. You may have “You Got a Friend In Me,” but who knows what creative casualties San Francisco is stacking up now?
