Stephanie Slocum and her husband have owned a bicycle shop in San Jose for just over a year and during most of that time, it’s been a game of financial whack-a-mole. They’ve replaced five smashed windows and lost two bikes to theft. The total cost for repairs and replacements for Upshift Cycles on The Alameda? $20,000.
When it comes to property crime — which includes burglary, larceny theft and vehicle theft — the data shows the city fluctuating between 25,000 to 28,000 total incidents per year between 2012 and 2022, with no major recent spikes in any of the categories. As for burglaries, there’s been a downward trend since 2012, with 5,206 incidents that year, the highest number in about a decade.
Mayor Matt Mahan, in an interview about the problems facing businesses, said San Jose will not face the same uncertain fate as its northern neighbor, which faces similar problems with property crime, untreated mental illness and drug abuse in its Tenderloin neighborhood and beyond. For employees and business owners in and outside of San Jose’s downtown corridor — who already deal with the day-to-day struggle of working in the service industry — adjustments are already being made.
Across the street, Starbucks employees described a Feb. 1 incident when a man entered the store and started provoking customers, then turned physical.