Who's Watching Who? by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Who’s Watching Who?

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Assimilation

I don’t want them to assimilate. I never wanted that.

Asking them to assimilate assumes I wanted them here in the first place. I don’t.

I want nothing to do with their filth, their scams, their stink, their crime, their third world ways.

N1668R5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Portland’s Nordstrom

Nordstrom Rack’s Portland closure renews worries about company’s

flagship downtown store

The Nordstrom Rack discount store will close its downtown Portland location at the end of January, the latest in a series of blows to the city’s struggling urban core.

Nordstrom Rack employs 37 people at the store at Southwest Third Avenue and Southwest Morrison Street. In a layoff notice, the company told public officials it plans to offer jobs at other

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locations to some employees but hadn’t determined how many it will retain.

Nordstrom Rack carries a broad range of clothing and accessories, typically offering discounts on merchandise that went unsold at its main Nordstrom stores. There is a Nordstrom Rack at the Cascade Station shopping mall in Northeast Portland and other locations in Beaverton, Hillsboro and Clackamas.

“We believe we’re best able to serve customers in the Portland area by focusing on our nearby Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack locations, as well as online,” the Seattle company said Tuesday.

Nordstrom closed stores in Vancouver and at Portland’s Lloyd Center in 2015. It closed its Salem store in 2018 and its Clackamas Town Center location in 2020.

Portland’s core has lost some major retailers since the pandemic. Target closed its store near the Central Library in 2023, for example, and REI closed its Pearl District location the following year. Many smaller shops closed, too. Portland’s vacancy rate is 33%, making it competitive for the highest in the nation, and on an upward course.

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The Portland Mayor Keith Wilson's office shared a statement on Tuesday in response to the announcement, saying that he’s "saddened" by the news of the closure.

NOTE #1 - Keith, boy, none of the good Portland voters care that you’re “saddened.” They want fewer sad ass stories and some law enforcement that minimizes the “need” for them. See, you can’t fool anybody by continuing to blame the long gone (if ever

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existent) pandemic. Retail stores do not have the highest of profit margins, and cannot exist in areas where B&B looting goes unpunished, encouraging more. Sure, it’s somewhat covered by insurance, but every reported looting event raises the insurance premiums paid, in the long run equating the reimbursed losses with cash out the door. In addition, this location has the highest crime rate in the city, and in that regard you have put retailers in another precarious legal situation, in that any worker injured by a B&B looter can sue Nordstrom for not protecting them. This potentially catastrophic loss is rendered unmanageable by Portland’s pro-crime legal environment.

The pathetic statement went on. "Mayor Wilson’s office remains in close communication with Nordstrom to ensure strong support for their Portland locations, especially the flagship store at Pioneer Place, which is a vital anchor for downtown," the statement read. "We deeply value Nordstrom’s longstanding presence in the heart of the city and are committed to working with them to keep downtown Portland vibrant."

NOTE #2 – The “flagship store” is only four blocks from the closed one, takes up a full block, and it’s abandonment would cause Portland’s vacancy rate to skyrocket, beyond any reasonable hope of recovery. On a positive note, perhaps the sad

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ass mayor is considering converting the abandoned commercial spaces into free housing for his B&B constituents.

Nordstrom, in a statement of its own, said "closing a store is never and easy decision" and the company believes it's "best able to serve customers in the Portland area by focusing on our nearby Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack locations, as well as online."

NOTE #3 – To publicly state the real reasons for an action, albeit they be obvious to the non-retarded, is to invite unwanted attention from vocal on-line libtards.

Nordstrom Rack opened its Moda Tower location when it was previously known as ODS Tower in 2005. By the time it closes at the end of January, it will have been there for more than 20 years.

At a time when big retail stores are struggling to keep their brick and mortar storefronts open, and consumers have reined in their spending, Nordstrom Rack has actually opened 22 new locations nationwide this year.

NOTE #4 – In low-crime White areas, but that goes without saying.

However, as previously reported by the Oregonian, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told community members at a meeting in July that the

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company’s chief executive officer confided to him that Nordstrom’s future in Portland seemed uncertain.

NOTE #5 – Surprise, fucking surprise.

“I met with Erik Nordstrom the other day and he said, ‘Keith, I don’t know how much longer we can continue to operate in Portland,’” Wilson said at the time.