Is Boston a safe city? It depends on who you ask.

According to Mayor Michelle Wu “We are the safest major city by the numbers, and we work hard to maintain that and to keep pushing the standards higher every day.”

South End residents and retailers aren’t feeling those ever-soaring standards. They say businesses in Boston are being battered by shoplifting spurred by the addicts at the Mass and Cass drug market trying to score another fix. Thieves are threatening store employees and customers with lethal needles, the Herald reported.

Businesses in the area have closed, and the ones who remain are targets. Randi Lathrop, a community leader and business owner, spoke of “professional shoplifters” who aim to steal every day from stores, as part of an “underground” resale network. Those “smash

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