Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
Alpha8472
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Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by Alpha8472 »

Target is closing stores as of today on Election Day in preparation for riots. Facebook pages are urging people by the thousands to loot malls and stores. It is really disturbing. The police do not have enough personnel to repel the crowds of thousands arriving by cars. Pharmacies such as CVS are also shutting down. The San Francisco Bay Area is an area of potential civil unrest.

Is this the case in other areas?
Last edited by Alpha8472 on November 3rd, 2020, 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
storewanderer
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Re: Target Closures

Post by storewanderer »

Raleys in Reno on Keystone Ave. (right off I-80) had a new "lot cop" camera installed in the middle of the parking lot last night. Not sure if it is anything to do with anything in particular that is happening today or just a coincidence.

Downtown Reno has a boarded up Bank of America Branch but the Walgreens is not boarded up and is still open 24 hours.

Everything else seems normal.

If people do not respect these stores, which did nothing to deserve being looted, the stores will ultimately either have to increase prices or close down. Neither would be a good result for these communities.
Alpha8472
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by Alpha8472 »

I noticed a Safeway in a suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area that was totally dark on the outside. The parking lot lights were turned off and the Safeway sign was dark, however the store was open. They were across the street from an outdoor mall that was ransacked and looted back in June. The Safeway apparently did not want to draw any attention from potential looters. It was very dangerous as cars almost ran over customers in the dark parking lot.

Traffic barriers blocked off various entrances to the outdoor mall. The shopping center was prepared for cars driving through or trying to ram stores. The last time this city was looted, the police had to unleash tear gas to repel the thousands of looters driving in from all over the state. Many streets in downtown are barricaded with concrete traffic barriers. This is probably to stop those caravans of looters in dozens of cars from overwhelming the streets.

Some Walmart stores have installed traffic barriers as well to prevent the stores from being rammed by cars. I noticed Walmart seemed to very empty today during the day.

I noticed many stores in the downtown area have boarded up their windows. Banks have boarded up their windows as well. The only things that are not covered are the ATMs. Hopefully banks have emptied those of most of their cash.

Restaurants are dark and closed. The streets are eerily quiet and most supermarkets have very few customers.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: November 3rd, 2020, 10:53 pm I noticed a Safeway in a suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area that was totally dark on the outside. The parking lot lights were turned off and the Safeway sign was dark, however the store was open. They were across the street from an outdoor mall that was ransacked and looted back in June. The Safeway apparently did not want to draw any attention from potential looters. It was very dangerous as cars almost ran over customers in the dark parking lot.
This is a terrible strategy to not call attention to the store. In the event of crime, having the exterior parking lot lights off make it so easy for people to get away without being seen... were the lights off on the whole shopping center or just the Safeway part?

I've found Safeway's exterior signage not lit quite a bit in Sparks earlier this year but the rest of the shopping center tenant signage including the parking lot lights in front of Safeway are lit. So it isn't really a safety issue- just makes Safeway look closed.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by Alpha8472 »

The shopping center contains only Safeway and some office buildings. They share the parking lot and the parking lot lights are out in front of the office buildings as well. The office buildings contain Kaiser Permanente's Psychiatric offices. I would be wary to walk through that dark parking lot if I had to see a doctor there. That would be a perfect place for people to get mugged in the dark or cars to get robbed.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: November 4th, 2020, 12:19 am The shopping center contains only Safeway and some office buildings. They share the parking lot and the parking lot lights are out in front of the office buildings as well. The office buildings contain Kaiser Permanente's Psychiatric offices. I would be wary to walk through that dark parking lot if I had to see a doctor there. That would be a perfect place for people to get mugged in the dark or cars to get robbed.
Sounds like an issue with the shopping center/property management as opposed to a Safeway problem then. Given it is dark at 5 PM and there are probably still people in those Kaiser facilities after 5 PM, between that and the people at Safeway hopefully someone contacted the property management and they will get this fixed tomorrow (well, today now).

I have noticed a lot more issues with exterior lighting since COVID started though.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: November 4th, 2020, 1:33 am
Alpha8472 wrote: November 4th, 2020, 12:19 am The shopping center contains only Safeway and some office buildings. They share the parking lot and the parking lot lights are out in front of the office buildings as well. The office buildings contain Kaiser Permanente's Psychiatric offices. I would be wary to walk through that dark parking lot if I had to see a doctor there. That would be a perfect place for people to get mugged in the dark or cars to get robbed.
Sounds like an issue with the shopping center/property management as opposed to a Safeway problem then. Given it is dark at 5 PM and there are probably still people in those Kaiser facilities after 5 PM, between that and the people at Safeway hopefully someone contacted the property management and they will get this fixed tomorrow (well, today now).

I have noticed a lot more issues with exterior lighting since COVID started though.
Or perhaps this has to do with timers not being adjusted with the switch back to standard time, something I see in a handful of places every year. Most stores seem to have photocells where this is not an issue. But some stores are operated in such a way that only management can reset and/or control the lights and might not be aware that this is an issue.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by Alpha8472 »

The Safeway sign and parking lot lights were still dark at 10 PM. Maybe they purposely turned it off. If it was a time change problem, the lights should have come on at some time during the night.

Walmart stores and malls are eerily empty today. People are afraid to go out shopping in this area.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: November 4th, 2020, 4:10 pm The Safeway sign and parking lot lights were still dark at 10 PM. Maybe they purposely turned it off. If it was a time change problem, the lights should have come on at some time during the night.

Walmart stores and malls are eerily empty today. People are afraid to go out shopping in this area.
I was in some stores around Reno early/mid evening and it was very quiet as well.

But nothing is boarded up, etc.
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Re: Target & Other Store Temporary Closures

Post by Alpha8472 »

I just checked Safeway again. They have lights back on in the parking lot, but the Safeway signs are turned off. It looks like they are not open, but they are.

I went by several malls and they are boarded up. I saw some random lootings in some bad urban neighborhoods. It looked like a small group of people were robbing liquor stores and then dashing out into the streets. They almost got hit by cars. These are very minor problems. Everywhere else seems quiet.

Target had police cars parked in its parking lot.
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