The company will close one store in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, two locations in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland area and three more in Portland, Oregon. The discounter said it will shutter the stores for good on Oct. 21.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” Target said in a news release.

“We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.”

[Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco-Oakland. Behold my shocked face. This isn’t due to shoplifting either, but to organized-crime looting that relies on brute-force attacks and the lack of any deterrent to stop the practice. These cities all adopted progressive community-security policies and pushed to defund the police (with the possible exception of Harlem); in fact, the other three cities were practically the epicenters of Defund the Police, with only Target’s home base of Minneapolis not among them. — Ed]