On lockdown ... behind the plastic gates

Suppose you need a bottle of dish soap. You can buy one at the Walgreens around the corner ... if you can find a clerk to unlock the plastic case where the item is confined. Good luck with that. You push the call button and sometimes a harried employee appears to unlock the soap. And sometimes no one responds. Usually you give up.

Walgreens has taught you to take your business elsewhere. (I get such items at Costco where the quantities are excessive, but you can put what you need in your cart without plastic hindrance.)

The plastic barriers are supposed to deter shop lifters. Makes you envision an old person who who slips a bar of soap into a purse or a kid who pockets a candy bar. I'm sure that happens all the time, but that's not the significant shoplifting problem. That's not what inspired retailers to adopt the plastic lockdown.

Where I live, organized retail theft at scale was happening. I've seen swarms of young males sweep products into laundry bags and run out the door. Those commodities will soon appear on blankets in front of street sellers around the corner. I doubt either the thieves or the street sellers are making much, but it's an economy of sorts. 

I sympathize with Walgreens needing to break the cycle to thrive. I sympathize also with people who get by in the informal economy, much of it extra-legal.

But plastic land isn't working. The only part of the Walgreens store that is crowded is the line for the pharmacy. 

Shopping without plastic barriers is becoming a luxury experience here in the inner city.

• • •

Another kind of plastic gate now collects fares and allows entrance and exit to the regional underground rail system, BART. We used to see groups of young people who jumped the waist high barriers at the fare stations. But no more. In my experience, the gates work reasonably smoothly and are not particularly daunting even to San Francisco's many tourists. 

I hope the gates have improved the BART experience; riders are way down since folks started working from home during the pandemic. This thing was designed to carry the region into downtown San Francisco. Now the system is gaining riders for Saturday events, though business traffic is still sluggish -- as is revenue.

Transit activists in San Francisco and also the five other BART counties are collecting signatures for November 2026 ballot measures to put the public systems on a firmer footing. This is something I can support.  Please do sign on!