Chicago City Wire

The owner of one of Chicago's most famous chocolate shops says soaring crime is forcing her to move her business to the suburbs.

Uzma Sharif, owner of Pilsen-based Chocolat Uzma, said Monday that crime near her store is so bad, she plans on closing it and re-opening one outside of the jurisdiction of not only Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx.

“We’re... tired of the high crime in Chicago– the lack of police,” Sharif told Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto. “We’ve had to reduce our hours.”

Uzma Sharif | Facebook

“We’re moving to the suburbs, we’re trying to get out of Cook County,” she said. "The mayor has nothing to say. We’ve spoken to the mayor’s office. We’ve written letters. They have nothing to say to us. We don’t have time to wait."

Sharif said Chicago is now unsafe for residents, comparing it to the crime-ridden fictional setting of the Batman movies.

“We’ve lived here all our lives. We cannot even walk down the street without looking over our shoulder. My friends are getting carjacked while doing deliveries for their businesses," she said. "The City of Chicago has become Gotham City, except we don’t have the Batman."

Sharif's announcement comes on the heels of a spate of large corporations announcing their departures from not only Chicago, but the state of Illinois entirely.

Tyson Foods is closing offices in Chicago’s West Loop and west suburban Downers Grove, moving 500 corporate jobs out of the state in early 2023, the company announced last week. The employees will move to Springdale, Arkansas.

Also leaving Chicago this year: investment giant Citadel (to Florida), equipment maker Caterpillar (to Texas) and aircraft manufacturer Boeing (to Virginia).

Their CEOs blame Lightfoot, Foxx and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker for supporting policies that have led to spiking crime in downtown Chicago, once one of the nation’s safest.

"If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here," Citadel CEO Ken Griffin told the Wall Street Journal in April. "I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from."

In September, McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski told the Economic Club of Chicago that the city is "in crisis" over spiking crime.

“Everywhere I go, I’m confronted by the same question these days — what’s going on in Chicago? While it may wound our civic pride to hear it, there is a general sense out there that our city is in crisis," Kempczinski said.

“We have violent crime that’s happening in our restaurants … we’re seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We’re having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants. So we see in our restaurants, every single day, what’s happening in society at large," he said.