Chicago Is So Broken That 7-Eleven Now Uses Opera to Fight Crime

To get your head around how dysregulated, crime-ridden, and homeless-occupied Brandon Johnson’s Chicago has become, you only have to look at the neighborhood 7-11. To deter criminals from entering the property, the owners of 7-11 play opera. Opera. Because the criminals of Chicago are so openly tolerated by the city’s Woke Mayor, the only effective force against them is civilization itself. It works. Combined with better lighting and the elimination of ledges for sitting, the tactic has been empirically successful in deterring loitering and reducing minor disturbances. Individual franchise owners in Chicago and other major U.S. cities have reported immediate drops in property crime, fewer panhandlers, less vandalism, and cleaner storefronts after installing speakers and playing opera. It’s like an acoustic version of broken windows theory, the only extant theory of law enforcement shown to radically reduce crime where it has been fully implemented. Here’s why the strategy works: * Dopamine Suppression: Studies show that when people are forced to listen to music they dislike, their brains suppress dopamine production, which sours their mood and drives them away.* Acoustic Discomfort: Blasting loud, high-pitched operatic vocals makes it physically uncomfortable to hold a conversation or sleep nearby, breaking up loitering hotspots.* The “Uncool” Factor: Loitering teenagers and young adults often find classical music unappealing or annoying, prompting them to seek another hangout spot.* Cultural Control: Opera instantly communicates that a space is managed, monitored, and intentionally maintained. Criminality and chronic disorder tend to flourish in environments that feel abandoned or culturally ownerless. Opera projects the opposite message. It says: somebody still cares what happens here.I went to a 7-11 to put the theory into practice. While there were some miscreants loitering out front, it was not a magnet for them. Inside, the 7-11 was remarkably clean, undisturbed, and free of riff-raff. Walgreens, which also suffers greatly from what retailers call “shrink,” or what real-world people call shoplifting or theft, has also used opera to great effect. While some locals have waged noise complaints, the practice is hopefully here to stay, or until Democratic mayors and governors start prioritizing major crime reduction again. Crotty Farm Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Cities have often shaped behavior through architecture, lighting, landscaping, and sound. Grand train stations once used classical music to cultivate calm and dignity. Churches used bells. Public squares used fountains and monuments to create atmospheres of order and civic seriousness. Civilization has always curated its soundscape. What is new is that the soundscape is now defensive. The music is no longer elevating public life. It is protecting property from it.The deeper significance is not the music itself, but that private businesses are now being forced to invent substitute forms of governance because the public sector no longer reliably performs its most basic function: maintaining order. Retailers have become amateur behavioral psychologists, environmental designers, and security theorists because the city increasingly refuses to impose consequences on anti-social behavior. Chicago’s notorious no-cash bail law, its highly restrictive foot and vehicular pursuit policy that prohibits officers from initiating chases unless there is an imminent threat of great bodily harm, and the reclassification of most retail theft as a misdemeanor have made the city a hellhole of free-range crime.When convenience stores begin using opera as a form of social control, a city is admitting something profound about itself. Public order is no longer being guaranteed by the state. It is being improvised piecemeal by private actors using architecture, lighting, music, and environmental pressure to reclaim fragments of civic dignity. The police retreat. The prosecutors rationalize. The politicians bloviate. And somewhere in Chicago, a 7-11 manager presses play on Mozart to keep the barbarians at bay.Thanks for reading Crotty Farm Report! This post is public, so feel free to share it. Get full access to Crotty Farm Report at crotty.substack.com/subscribe