Last month a Whole Foods supermarket in San Francisco announced it was closing a little more than a year after it opened. Unlike a lot of closures that happen in the city, the company made it pretty clear in this case that conditions on the street were to blame. The company’s own statement said the closure was to “ensure the safety of our team members.” Nevertheless, last week the San Francisco Chronicle published an opinion piece claiming there was more to the story:

When the Whole Foods Market at San Francisco’s Civic Center suddenly announced a temporary closure on April 10 due to unspecified safety concerns, national political pundits were swift in seeing this as a telltale sign of the city’s apocalyptic doomscape…

According to one person who worked at the Civic Center Whole Foods, “Sales weren’t too great for the supposed flagship store of the region: Numbers were low compared to other San Francisco stores.”

Sunday the NY Times offered a more realistic picture of why the store closed. You tell me if this sounds more like a poor sales problem or an apocalyptic doomscape problem.

People threatened employees with guns, knives and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought and tried to defecate on the floor, according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem.

“Male w/machete is back,” the report on one 911 call states. “Another security guard was just assaulted,” another says. A man with a four-inch knife attacked several security guards, then sprayed store employees with foam from a fire extinguisher, according to a third.

In September, a 30-year-old man died in the bathroom from an overdose of fentanyl, a highly potent opioid, and methamphetamine.

In addition to the drug-fueled mayhem, there was also constant theft from the store.

Police described theft as rampant at Whole Foods, with thieves walking out with armfuls of alcohol, at least at the start. After 250 shopping hand baskets were stolen, the company restocked with 50 more. Those went missing, too.

During the store’s 13 months in operation, at least 14 people were arrested, including on charges of grand theft and battery, according to official reports. Chief Scott said that plainclothes officers were sent there and security improved over time, but seemingly not enough for the company.

The story closes on a local homeless man named Joseph Peterson who told the Times he understood why the store had closed. “People kept stealing from it,” he said. Peterson admits that he stole from it too but claims he only stole food to eat, not items to sell for drugs. Who knows, he may even be telling the truth.

The point is that there are always people eager to downplay the problems because the one thing they’re absolutely sure about is that right wing outlets are always wrong. So if people on the right are saying SF is a mess, there must be more to the story and it’s fine to make up a straw man argument you can easily dismiss like “apocalyptic doomscape.”

Again, if you have 568 emergency calls spread over roughly 400 days and people dying in your bathroom, you have something like an apocalyptic doomscape problem. If you have people stealing armfuls of alcohol and other items for personal use or resale on a daily basis then slow sales are not your primary problem.

The primary problem is homeless people who spend their lives seeking drugs by stealing from retailers and reselling what they steal to buy fentanyl or meth or heroin. Many of these people just nod off until it’s time for the next round of theft but some become deranged and violent and will attack anyone who gets between them and their next fix.

Maybe if that was the only problem the city was facing it could deal with it, but San Francisco is also in the midst of a collapse in commercial real estate caused by more people working at home. This means fewer people using public transportation and few people shopping and eating downtown during the week. And when you add all of that up you get the urban doom loop.

None of it means that San Francisco is about to disappear or that you’re likely to be murdered if you visit the place. It’s not literally an apocalyptic doomscape, that’s just the straw man people invent to avoid admitting there’s a real problem. Businesses are closing and until the situation improves somehow they won’t be coming back. There’s another case in point just today. Nordstrom is closing both of its stores downtown:

Nordstrom is planning to close both of its Downtown San Francisco stores, choosing not to renew its lease obligations at its location in the Westfield Mall. It will also close a second nearby Downtown Nordstrom Rack.

The retailer confirmed the closures on Tuesday. In an email to employees, the company’s chief stores offices wrote that “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”

That’s the typical vague statement big retailers issue when closing stores in San Francisco, but the owner of the mall where one of the stores is located knows what’s happening. A spokesman told the Standard, “A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area due to the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees.”