Taco Bell Closes Indoor Dining At 4 Oakland Locations Over Crime
Several Taco Bell fast-food restaurants in Oakland, California, have shut down their indoor dining due to rampant crime, announcing that they would only be serving food through the drive-thru while also going cashless.
At least four Taco Bells, all of which are owned by the Diversified Restaurant Group, have closed their dining rooms.
Taco Bell has released a statement about the decision, where the company revealed that they had grown concerned about the safety of their employees and customers due to rampant crime.
“Providing a safe environment for team members and customers is the priority at Taco Bell restaurants,” the statement read, according to CBS News. “The franchise owner and operator has informed us that they are consistently evaluating and working to ensure a safe environment by implementing procedures, such as closing dining rooms and hiring security guards, and they have taken extra measures to meet with local law enforcement.”
Speaking with a local news station, one Oakland Taco Bell employee explained that the dining rooms had been closed because “some people sometimes make trouble.”
An Oakland resident also told the outlet that the city has “a whole bunch of businesses bouncing because they’re not safe no more,” adding: “It shouldn’t happen… the situation has got to change, period.”
One of the locations being shuttered is located at 35th Avenue and MacArthur. This location has been robbed at least four times since Nov. 2023 — with the most recent robbery involving the thieves driving their truck through the Taco Bell’s windows, attaching a cable to the store’s safe and driving away.
There is one Taco Bell in Oakland that will continue to serve customers indoors — the Telegraph Avenue location — but the store has still decided to stop accepting cash.
Oakland has experienced a 43% rise in strong-armed robberies in the last year, according to The Post Millennial, with the outlet noting that 1,282 documented incidents occurred between January 2023 and November 2023. The outlet also noted that Oakland’s violent crime rate has reached its highest point since the 1990s.
In response to the increased crime, several other Oakland businesses have shut their doors — including In-N-Out, Raising Canes, Starbucks and Denny’s.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) spoke out about the news in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he suggested that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) soft-on-crime policies were to blame for the business exodus.
“In Oakland, you can no longer dine inside at Taco Bell. Out-of-control crime has forced 4 locations to go drive-thru only. Newsom’s ‘model for the nation,’” he wrote.
The problem has gotten so bad in Oakland that business owners are threatening to stop paying taxes if the Democrat-controlled city does not address rampant crime.
“We’re proposing not to pay taxes to the city until you give me the services that we deserve,” Jose Ortiz, the owner of the La Perla Puerto Rican Cuisine, told KNTV-TV, explaining that his restaurant had been robbed at gunpoint twice just in the past two years.
“We’re not the only ones,” he added. “We’re all in the same boat all across the city of Oakland. The city needs to immediately, effectively do something about it.”
