While crime has plummeted citywide, one area of San Francisco is experiencing a dramatic surge in theft, with reports jumping 92% from last year.
Between January and August, larceny-theft reports in the San Francisco Police Department’s Southern District (Mission Bay, SoMa, Rincon Hill, Yerba Buena, and Treasure Island) almost doubled from the same period in 2024, increasing from 955 incidents to 1,876. Meanwhile, citywide reports fell about 23%, from 14,423 to 11,201.
The surge is driven by nonviolent thefts other than car break-ins, according to the latest SFPD data. Thefts increased the most at shopping malls and grocery stores in the affected neighborhoods, including Whole Foods, Safeway, Walgreens, and the Metreon and San Francisco Centre shopping malls.
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Three intersections in the Southern District experienced the highest rates of retail theft: Fourth and King, Fourth and Bluxome, and Fourth and Mission streets. These intersections saw both the biggest percentage increases in retail theft and the largest total number of larceny reports.
To understand the scale of the problem, The Standard visited four theft hot spots in South Beach and SoMa and spoke with store workers about shoplifting they’ve witnessed.
At the Whole Foods on Fourth, a security guard said he has come to expect a weekly visit from a serial shoplifter he has dubbed "the Peet's Guy." Every week, the shoplifter steals dozens of bags of ground coffee from the Berkeley-founded chain.
“Every Sunday or Monday,” the guard said. “Always Peet’s.”
A few blocks away, at Safeway, Instacart shopper Dmitri Djatkin, 42, who is frequently at the store picking up groceries for the platform’s customers, said he’s seen an uptick in shoplifting.
Djatkin, who stops in 10 to 15 times a month, said he witnessed one theft in 2024, but this year has been far worse. Minutes before, he had seen a man pulling packets of instant ramen out of his jacket after guards stopped him at the exit.
“There has definitely been a spike,” Djatkin said.
At the Metreon Target — long known as a theft hot spot — workers said they see 10 to 12 shoplifting attempts daily. Behind gleaming acrylic panels are locked-down cosmetics, toothbrushes, shampoo (“Head & Shoulders has a lot of street value,” one asset protection worker said), painkillers, and underwear — including, ironically, “Pair of Thieves" boxer briefs.
Thieves are liable to swipe anything that isn’t locked down, Target workers said. Wet wipes and bed sheets are frequently stolen. Vacuums cleaners are popular in part because they are displayed on a shelf right next to a fire exit. One worker said a thief recently looked him “dead in the eye” as he made off with a vacuum “one foot away from me” and whisked off through the red double doors.
Across the street, even as the San Francisco Centre is on life support, the Shoe Palace sees an unfair share of shoplifters. While thieves mostly prefer to run in and dash out with stacks of $30 T-shirts and $200 Jordans, some have resorted to craftier tactics.
A worker said a thief pulled “a switcheroo” right under workers’ noses in recent weeks. The culprit, who looked like a “normal guy,” walked in wearing a used pair of white-and-blue Air Jordan Melo 12s, which go for $205, and asked to try on a new pair. As he squeezed into the new shoes, he placed his old pair in the box and walked out wearing the new ones.
“It wasn’t until later that we were like, ‘These are used,’” the staffer recalled.
So what are the cops doing about it?
Businesses in the Southern District face a disadvantage, as cops regularly patrol events at Chase Center and Oracle Park, taking away from time they could walk the beat, according to Alex Ludlum, interim executive director of the SoMa West Community Benefit District.
“If you design the police station boundaries and assignments this way, you have purposefully disadvantaged Southern Station's ability to respond to crime,” he said in an email.
The CBD — spanning Fifth Street to South Van Ness Avenue — employs street-cleaning crews, deploys ambassadors, hosts events, and markets local businesses. Ludlum resigned from his seat on the Commission on Community Investment in 2023 after it was revealed he anonymously promoted a “downtown doom loop tour.”
Police said stopping retail theft is a “major priority” for which they are expanding the use of automated license plate readers and drones that can be used to target and deter organized retail theft.
Events at Chase Center and Oracle Park are staffed by off-duty police officers, who also juggle incidents in the surrounding neighborhoods related to the events and games, and the venues pay for these officers, according to an SFPD spokesperson.
The department said it urges businesses to report crimes so it can better deploy resources. Businesses can email [email protected] to participate in operations targeting organized retail crime.
“The SFPD will continue to make this neighborhood a priority, focusing on the safety of our residents, businesses, and visitors,” the spokesperson said.
The supervisor for the district, Matt Dorsey, declined to comment.
Despite police assurances, Djatkin, clutching a cart in the Safeway cheese aisle, said he was baffled by the crime spike at his usual grocery store.
“You’d think the new buildings would make the area more sophisticated, to clean this area up,” he said. “Looks like it’s having the opposite effect.”