As part of a recent announcement, Wawa explained that it will be shutting down quite a few stores overnight throughout suburban Philadelphia overnight due to the constantly climbing crime rate throughout the city.
The chain gas station and convenience store is slated to shut down a total of nine separate stores across Northeast Philadelphia and the Bucks County suburbs overnight, as reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. The stores will be shut down from midnight to 5 a.m. for the foreseeable future. This choice to close down the stores during the night takes place just after a pair of stores were robbed this past week, and as Wawa reportedly talks about entirely leaving the area of Philadelphia entirely due to the issue with crime.
One spokesperson for the company refused to list all the stores which would be moving to the new policy, due to currently ongoing police investigations. “What we can say is at times we may temporarily close or limit hours due to external challenges or recommendations by local authorities for the safety and security of our associates and customers,” explained the spokesperson to the inquirer.
It was announced that a pair of stores that will be closing during the night are located in Northeast Philadelphia. The other various locations all sprinkled around the suburbs of Bucks County: two of which are in Bensalem, which directly sits next to the city; four of them are located out near the town of Feasterville-Trevose, and one other is situated in close by Holland.
These announced closures are on the way due to, in part, a pair of stores that were robbed last week. Last Monday, the location on the corner of Street Road and Bustleton in Feasterville-Trevose was held up at two in the morning by an armed man. The next day at 3 in the morning, the location in Holland was held up. Local police forces think it was the same person who was responsible for both of the incidents.
Wawa has a presence across quite a bit of the East Coast, with stores in seven different states, but has its main headquarters out in Pennsylvania, and is a well-known landmark of the Philadelphia area.
To go along with the new plan to shut its doors during the evening and even permanently shutting down others, Philadelphia City Councilmember Mike Driscoll expressed just last week that the chain is in talks currently about possibly leaving the area entirely due to the crime rate.
“They’ve had to invest in security … security doesn’t add anything to your bottom line, it takes away from your bottom line,” stated Driscoll. “But without it, then you’re in deep trouble. So they are spending money, they’re losing money. The scariest part to me is one of the senior officials said, ‘We’re seriously considering moving out of the city of Philadelphia in our strategic planning, at least not to expand.’”
