In-N-Out is the latest company to blame store closure on crime
- In-N-Out announced this week that it will close its Oakland location in March.
- The company cited increased and ongoing crime affecting its customers and employees.
In a first for In-N-Out Burger, the popular fast food chain will close one of its California locations later this year, citing increased crime in the surrounding area.
The company announced this week that it will close its only Oakland location in March, saying its employees and customers are regularly victimized by car break-ins, property damage, theft, and armed robberies.
"We feel the frequency and severity of the crimes being encountered by our Customers and Associates leave us no alternative," Denny Warnick, chief operating officer at In-N-Out, said in a statement shared with Business Insider.
Certain violent crimes have been on the rise in Oakland in the last year. Citing city crime data, local outlet ABC 7 News I-Team reported earlier this month that robberies in Oakland are up 38 percent since 2022, while burglaries are up 23 percent. Motor vehicle thefts are also up 44 percent since 2022, according to the report.
In-N-Out said several of its stores have relocated in the company's 75 years, but the Oakland store will be its first ever closure.
"This location remains a busy and profitable one for the company, but our top priority must be the safety and well-being of our Customers and Associates — we cannot ask them to visit or work in an unsafe environment," Warnick said.
All employees at the Oakland In-N-Out will have the opportunity to transfer to a nearby location or receive a severance package, the company said.
In-N-Out is the latest company to blame crime for store closures. In September, Target announced it would close nine stores across four metro areas as a result of "unsustainable" levels of organized retail crime.
Target CEO Brian Cornell said at the time that theft incidents at Target stores with "violence or threats of violence" had more than doubled since January 2023.
Publicly available crime data, however, did not seem to fully support Target's claims. Business Insider reported in October that crime stats didn't indicate that the closed stores were hit harder than nearby locations that remained open.
Retailers could be emphasizing crime as a factor in store closures in an effort to spur government action to address the issue, Business Insider reported in November.