The demise of Oakland's only In-N-Out restaurant due to rising crime could be the last straw for community members and possibly a blessing in disguise for local leaders who have been asking for help.
This week, In-N-Out announced that the burger joint near Hegenberger Road, a main route to and from Oakland International Airport, would close its doors in March.
“Despite taking repeated steps to create safer conditions, our customers and associates are regularly victims of carjackings, property damage, robberies and armed robberies,” Denny Warnick, chief operating officer of the company, said in a statement. company.
Some Oakland residents believe the crime problem persists, at least in part, thanks to Mayor Sheng Thao.
The group Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao, led by a former Alameda County Superior Court judge whom Thao removed from the city's Police Commission in June, has blamed the mayor for not declaring a state of emergency against crime. and not replace the police chief she fired. in February, and missed the application deadline last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom's office offered more than $276 million to cities and counties to fight retail theft.
On Friday, the group posted a notice of intent to recall and plans to begin collecting signatures in early February for a petition to put the recall on the ballot. The mayor did not respond to the notice within the legal deadline, said the group in Xformerly Twitter, so the recall petition will not include any response from Thao to the group's criticism.
“After missing the deadline to apply for a retail theft grant worth millions of dollars to help Oakland fight crime, he has now once again failed to respond to voters on why it shouldn't be withdrawn,” Seneca Scott, spokesperson for the group. , he said in X. “Mayor Thao must realize that there is no defense for the indefensible. The current state of Oakland is deplorable and she is directly to blame.”
In a statement to the Times, Thao said, “As mayor, I have prioritized this critical gateway to Oakland and increased police presence and employed technology to deter and respond to criminal behavior.”
Thao said the additional public safety resources have led to a reduction in property crimes along the Hegenberger Corridor.
“However, more is needed and I will work with regional and state leaders to protect this tourist gateway to Oakland,” he said.
Others in the city believe the current situation is largely the result of state or local laws that they believe impede enforcement, such as Proposition 47 of 2014 and Proposition 57 of 2016. In a statement, the Latino Chamber of Commerce of Oakland said In-N-Out's decision to close its Oakland location is sad, but departures like that are happening more and more in their communities.
“Many businesses, small and large in the state, suffer from constant crime and many times the police have their hands tied and cannot do much because of a municipal ordinance or laws that end up protecting criminals instead of victims.” the statement said.
The chamber said: “When city, state leaders and prosecutors do too little to stop crime, this is the end result: businesses close and people start to give up.”
Several In-N-Out restaurants have relocated throughout its 75-year history. But the Oakland location will be the first the company will have to close.
“We believe that the frequency and severity of crimes our clients and associates face leave us no choice,” Warnick said, even though the location is “busy and profitable.” The company cannot ask its customers or employees “to visit or work in an unsafe environment,” Warnick said.
The move attracted headlines across the country, in part because it reinforced the argument of some conservative pundits that the liberal Bay Area is being destroyed by crime. The politics surrounding the closure became so intense that the largest group of In-N-Out fans on Facebook decided to ban posts about Oakland's closure, SFGate reported.
In an interview, Oakland City Councilwoman Treva Reid admitted that her district is reeling from rampant crime, but said she regrets that it caused the business to close its doors. It was not the first, as many local businesses have had to close their operations.
Reid has been dealing with the issue since taking office in January 2021.
What should be a welcoming economic hub for locals and tourists coming into town from the airport is instead a place where “you have to look around when you're pumping gas,” Reid said.
The community “lives in the midst of every disparity you can imagine. [and] “We carry the weight of that in this district,” he said.
For the past two years, the councilman has been asking local, regional and state partners to create a regional interagency task force on public safety because the current siled approach does not address the problem.
The councilman's office has been wrestling with the issue from different angles, including adding more foot patrols, securing a commitment from the California Highway Patrol to dedicate overtime to the area, increasing efforts to crack down on robberies and securing $1 million for community safety ambassadors.
Reid said the district saw a 40% reduction in crime and yet “businesses will hear that it's not enough.” The councilor does not contradict them.
“People are appearing in this corridor like [committing crimes] “It’s their daily job,” he said. “They're checking in and out and wreaking havoc in between.”
In bimonthly meetings, Reid brings together about 75 business owners with department leaders, religious leaders, the neighborhood council, the police department and the sheriff's department to determine what can be done.
“We are an advocacy force multiplier, to demand that local leaders in our city and county put the resources into this corridor to make it look clean and beautiful… and address this crime problem,” he said.
In 2023, car thefts in the area decreased 23% from the previous year's total due in part to additional resources deployed by the Oakland Police Department from July to December.
While progress has been made in one section of the city, the Oakland Police Department's shooting crime analysis shows that reports of violence throughout Oakland increased 21% last year compared to 2022.
Against this backdrop, Oakland's 700-person police department has been operating with a void at the top since last February, when Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong was fired for mishandling police misconduct cases. In late 2023, the Oakland Police Commission presented Thao with three potential candidates and she rejected them all.
Tim Gardner, co-founder of the online publication Oakland Report, criticized the decision to fire Armstrong, saying Armstrong fostered relationships and trust with the community. Thao, he said, has lost that confidence.
He has called on the City Council to establish a task force dedicated to improving public safety, with regular reports to the community to track its progress. The council was not bothered.
“[Councilmember Reid] “He was the most engaged and responsive of the council members, everyone else wanted to avoid him,” he said. “Because forming a working group dedicated to the security problem would be like admitting that you have a problem.”
Although Gardner does not live in Reid's district, he said residents across the city must hold their local leaders accountable to do more to ensure public safety. She said what affects one district, affects all.
Reid is trying to create a different type of task force, a regional one that would be responsible for the situation in his community. In the short term, he said, many people are stepping up to help.
He said he hopes they will stick around long after the attention generated by In-N-Out's departure fades.
