Major San Fran retailer warns iconic Gump's store may relocate after 165 years
Gump's owner John Chachas joins 'The Story with Martha MacCallum' to discuss how San Francisco's unlivable conditions may force the retailer to relocate to another state.
Gump's owner John Chachas discussed how San Francisco's "sad state of affairs" may lead him to move the iconic retail store outside of California on "The Story with Martha MacCallum."
JOHN CHACHAS: It's a sad state of affairs. I spoke to a customer today who's come to us for 50 consecutive Christmases and who won't come back because the city is in a difficult and awfully dirty condition. Our business is a business that people love and people want to come in to San Francisco, want to come visit a store, but if you can't get around and when you're trying to walk the streets you step over needles and human waste and often bodies on the streets, it makes it an unworkable business environment. And I got to the point where I felt like for the benefit of the employees of our company who have worked tirelessly to make us a success, I needed to speak out and say empty offices on the one hand, and that element on the other makes for an unworkable business center. I think it can be fixed. I hope it can be fixed. I do. I do have ideas of how to fix it, but unless politicians change their point of view about this, it's a very, very tough thing.
MARTHA MACCALLUM: [San Francisco Mayor] London Breed, do they want to lose Gump's? You've reached out to London Breed, I'm sure you've reached out to Governor Newsom, this is all they sent us from London Breed's office, Mayor Breed regularly meets with businesses, residents, stakeholders to discuss their concerns around public safety..., and it goes on.
CHACHAS: Yeah, I look, I've heard by email from a couple of the members of the Board of Supervisors who I think are really chagrined at this kind of news. I have in the past spoken to representatives of Mayor Breed's office. I have never spoken to anybody from Governor Newsom's office, but I think this is going to galvanize something, I hope, because this is not unique to us. This is every small or medium-sized business in the city of San Francisco cannot survive. These kinds of things are incompatible with successful business. And if that's something that businesses have to do to depart, it's just tragic. It's really tragic.
MACCALLUM: I want to make the point before you leave, which you said to me before we started, that you're not talking about closing Gump's, you're talking about moving.
CHACHAS: Oh, yes.
MACCALLUM: Where will you move your store to?
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CHACHAS: I don't think we know yet. First, I hope we don't have to. I would really like to see some things corrected, but if we had to, we sell in all 50 states, we have dedicated people in all the places that you would want to be: Florida, Texas. There's lots of great places to be, you know, but our heart is in San Francisco. We want to be in a healthy city.
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