(Natural News) As cities all over America have placed stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus, high-end retailers are worrying about potential civil unrest. Several shops, including those in one of Hollywood’s most famous shopping districts, are taking measures to protect themselves against possible looters.
Shops on or around Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive seem to be preparing for the worse possible scenario during this current outbreak. Photographs have surfaced online of several of these stores having their doors and storefront windows boarded up with giant slabs of plywood. This is in addition to said stores clearing out their shelves of expensive merchandise.
When interviewed by TMZ, construction workers boarding up the Pottery Barn off Beverly Drive and Dayton Way, right near Rodeo, stated that what they were doing was only a temporary measure to protect that specific branch from bad actors. However, other photographs have now come in showing other stores in other major cities also doing the same.
The defensive measures by retailers come after police departments have been hit hard by the ongoing pandemic. In some cities, hundreds of police officers have tested positive for the disease, while thousands have called in sick or are in isolation.
High-end stores anticipating looting and civic unrest all over
Rodeo Drive isn’t the only high-end shopping district that’s seeing it stores board up due to fears of possible looting and civil unrest. Numerous photographs have popped up over Twitter, showing shopping districts in cities around the country such as Chicago, San Francisco and more boarding up their windows.
Closures of high-end retailers such as Dolce & Gabbana and Hermes at Chicago’s Magnificent Mile have prompted Luigi Zingales, professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, to compare the situation to the 2019-20 Chilean protests where rioters looted shops and even churches in the capital of Santiago and other cities.
The “Magnificent Mile” in Chicago today. It looks like Chile in November. All fancy stores boarded up. Are they afraid of #Covid19 or of something else? @DMatamala pic.twitter.com/Ag2SU2iJ2a
— Zingales (@zingales) March 29, 2020
Meanwhile, stores boarding up in San Francisco have caused others to compare the situation to hurricane preparations — something that normally doesn’t have to be done in California, which rarely, if ever, experiences direct landfall from storms.
