‘We cannot deal with the level of crime’: Ursula suggest $1.7M grocery plan reveals what Seattle can’t fix

Seattle is putting $1.7 million into keeping grocery stores open and bringing new ones into neighborhoods with “food deserts.” A majority of the funding will be allocated toward retail theft, property damage, and other crime through security and facility upgrades.

Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin, co-hosts of “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, said the funding is welcome but doesn’t address what’s powering the theft in the first place.

“We can keep doing this over and over again because the problem will still exist,” Gee said. “Yes, I do want stores to continue. I do want safer environments for these workers. But you also want to know what we also need to address? We need to address people being able to afford these things. Hunger and profit are really what’s driving all of this stuff.”

One million dollars will be set aside for the theft and upgrades, which are backed by Seattle Police crime data that is helping determine which stores get the funding.

Gee said there’s no justification for stealing from a grocery store, but asked listeners to consider why it’s happening.

“There’s food insecurity. There are people that go in there, and they probably steal food because there’s a fixed budget that you have with your bills, and usually the food budget is where you can try to find some extra money,” Gee said.

He pointed to organized theft rings as the other driver, and traced the supply chain back to the same problem.

“The theft ring — what is the goal? Who are they selling to?” Gee asked. “If you’re selling things on the black market, who’s buying that formula and all of those lotions at a cheaper price?”

“People who don’t have a lot of money,” Ursula responded.

Another $700,000 will support neighborhood grocers and food access, including a year of business consulting for 10 independent stores and market studies in eight neighborhoods. The model for the effort is Lam’s Seafood Market, where the city helped with permitting, break-in repairs and security upgrades; Lam’s is now reopening a Rainier Valley location that had been vacant for eight years.

Ursula says the city is spending money here because it can’t solve the crime problem

Ursula said the initiative is unusual: Seattle is tackling food access and retail crime together in a single effort, treating grocery stores as a neighborhood necessity worth protecting rather than leaving their survival entirely to the market. But she said part of the reason the city is spending on security is that it hasn’t been able to address the crime itself.

“It almost seems to me like the city is also saying, ‘We cannot deal with the level of crime that we have,'” Ursula said. “‘We need these grocery stores in these certain neighborhoods, and there are crimes that we cannot prevent, so we are going to try to spend money here because we can’t spend enough money here to address this other problem.'”

Gee asked listeners to sit with something uncomfortable when he posed a scenario: you’re a parent with a 2-year-old and a newborn. Both need formula and diapers, and you’ve exhausted every option.

“What’s going to prevent you from doing for your child?” Gee said. “I’m not going to answer that for you, but I just want to give you something to think about. There’s somebody listening right now that has had to answer that. If you’ve been in that situation, then you know. If you’ve never been in that situation, that’s a blessing.

“If you go away from this topic saying, ‘Well, it’s the consequences, it’s the drugs fueling it,’ if that’s all you get from that, then I’m telling you there’s more to it,” he added.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.