Consumer electronics retailer B8ta has temporarily closed two San Francisco stores, the latest shuttering coming after an armed robbery on Wednesday at its Hayes Valley location amid a surge in violent crime.
Security camera footage shows a man with a scooter entering the store and flashing a silver gun at the store manager, who backs away. The man, who is wearing a mask and baseball cap, takes two laptops and leaves the store on the scooter.
B8ta CEO Vibhu Norby said crime has gotten much worse this year in San Francisco. Last month, an unmasked man “clearly on drugs” took an $800 product and ran out, he said. Separately, another man went into the store’s back room and damaged products and broke a sign, according to a police report. At its Union Square location, two women stole multiple bags last month, according to a police report. That store is also now closed and all of the incidents are under investigation, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Burglaries, classified as theft with forced entry or intimidation, have skyrocketed in San Francisco over the past year, with closed stores and homes becoming popular targets during the pandemic. Citywide, burglaries jumped 50.9% in 2020 to 7,487 cases compared to 4,962 cases in 2019, according to police. In the department’s northern district, which includes Hayes Valley, burglaries were up 44%.
It’s another hurdle for retailers who were forced to close for months during the pandemic and now have restrictions on occupancy. Many shoppers have switched to online ordering, reducing foot traffic.
B8ta’s high-end products include laptops and speakers worth thousands of dollars, and robberies have been a problem since the Hayes Valley store opened in 2017. But the recent incidents, culminating with a gunman in the store this week, made keeping the store open impossible, Norby said. An unarmed security guard was powerless to stop the robbery.
Violent crime isn’t a problem at the company’s stores outside of San Francisco, which include other Bay Area cities like Palo Alto, Corte Madera and San Jose. “This doesn’t exist in other places where we have stores,” he said.
Someone even broke a window at the company’s store at Chase Center last month, which is a block from police headquarters, but was thwarted by a second pane of glass.
Norby said it’s disappointing that some of San Francisco’s premier shopping areas have become dangerous, and he wants to reopen the stores when it feels safe.
“Hayes is one of the best shopping streets in the city,” he said. The Union Square location is next to luxury store Hermès.
He’s calling on city officials to prioritize safety in the areas.
“I don’t have a solution for you but I do have a challenge, which is keep this block safe for a month,” Norby said.
The city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development said it connected B8ta to Union Square’s Community Benefit District, which partners with local merchants on public safety and other services, and to Northern Station Police Captain Paul Yep.
“We are sorry Mr. Norby and his employees have had to experience this. Our hope is to continue to bring COVID-19 cases down, so that we can resume reopening our economy and start allowing people to come back into the corridors to shop and eat, and to do them safely,” the agency said.
“This is a deeply concerning development, and our office has been in direct touch with the owner, as well as the SFPD and District Attorney, in response. We are determined to address this issue and make sure our neighborhood businesses and their workers are protected,” Supervisor Dean Preston, who represents Hayes Valley, said in a statement.
B8ta has raised over $93 million from investors, including Macy’s and Khosla Ventures, in an effort to reimagine brick-and-mortar retail for tech products, but the pandemic ravaged its business. The company laid off over half of its corporate employees and furloughed around 250 retail workers last March. Many workers have been rehired, and the company was aided by a $2.26 million Paycheck Protection Program loan, Norby said. The company now has around 130 workers.
“We’ve been finding ways to make ends meet. We’re definitely not out of the woods,” he said, predicting it will be another year before things recover.
Last March, the company closed its San Francisco office and changed its mailing address to its warehouse in Austin, Texas, but Norby intends to keep B8ta’s headquarters in San Francisco, where he lives, and hopes to eventually reopen the shuttered stores.
“S.F. is such a great city, it’d be a shame to not have a store here,” he said. “We’re not leaving.”
Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf