TED Baker has announced they are shutting down its North American stores, following employees growing safety concerns in one of its prime locations. The British retailer announced that its location at the San Francisco Centre will be one of many stores that it will be shutting down in the United States after employees reported rising crime. The store filed for bankruptcy last month in New York after the company claimed that operating partners of Authentic Brand Group, which acquired the retailer, stopped paying its suppliers.
However, prior to the filing, the San Francisco Centre location was cited as a major concern since October 2022. Sami Archondo, vice president of retail at Ted Baker, said in an email obtained by The San Francisco Chronicle that the store was dealing with major public safety issues. Archondo claimed that five different employees reported an “increase in violent activity from homeless people on the streets coming in the mall.
” The same staffers also alerted hire-ups that criminals also “continue to come into our location to swipe the front table,” Archondo wrote. At one point, employees locked the doors and found someone banging from the other side "threatening to bring a gun to shoot everyone, and telling our team that they will wait for them and rape them on their way home,” Archondo said. Ari Hoffman, Ted Baker’s North America CEO, reached out to the mall asking them to pay for a security guard.
“If the mall does not provide a safe enviro.