PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The owner of the Grocery Outlet in Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood said crime and violence is getting so bad, he is considering closing.
Don McKeever, the store’s owner, told KOIN 6 he sees rampant shoplifting, property damage, and in some cases, he or his employees are assaulted. According to the Portland Police Bureau’s reported crime statistics, property crimes like shoplifting and vandalism are down four percent from last year. But in Parkrose, they are up four percent. Total crime has not gone up or down across all of Portland in the last year. But this past year, it has gone up 15% in Parkrose alone. McKeever said his biggest concern is the increase in violence he is dealing with.
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“There was a person, and that person was trying to take a bag of pastries and other things out of the store, and I grabbed the bag to try to get it back,” he said. “And that person then pulled out, it was a smaller knife but it was a knife, and stabbed me multiple times in the hand. I’ve had a gun pulled on me for a $7.99 bottle of wine.”
McKeever said the crime is literally costing him. He has had his front windows broken, and he said his store’s shopping carts are stolen constantly.
“We lose 8 to 10 cards a week,” he said. “$350 a cart. Very expensive to replace. You need shopping carts to be a serious shopping store. The broken windows that’s tens of thousands of dollars. We lose probably a good another 10,000 a month just in merchandise.”…