Chicago mayor tells residents to stop using cash if they don't want to keep getting mugged

CHICAGO (TND) — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has proposed a solution to end rampant crime in her city: Stop using cash.

Lightfoot suggested those afraid of being mugged opt to use digital forms of payments instead.

During a debate for Lightfoot’s upcoming race to regain control of her seat, the topic of safety concerns, particularly those of street vendors, came up.

We have been in Little Village working with street vendors, understanding what the nature of the crime is, making sure we're doing things in concert with them to help them make sure that their money is secure, not use money if at all possible, using other forms of transactions to take care of themselves,” Lightfoot insisted, when asked what solutions she was implementing to reduce the number of muggings in Chicago.

Reactions to Lightfoot’s comments generated a flurry of criticism, including arguments the Chicago Mayor was setting the stage for “a cashless society.”

“Yeah ok. Violent crime, gang activity is based on street vendor honeypots?” questioned former Major League Baseball pitcher C.J. Wilson. “Chicago is so doomed.”

“Just walk away Lori, your solutions are not working. Time to let go and wake up,” another critic commented about Lightfoot’s remarks.

In other parts of the U.S. like Seattle’s King County, legislation has been introduced to ban the practice of refusing cash at local businesses.

READ MORE: “Businesses react to proposed ban on cashless retailers in unincorporated King County”

KOMO News in Seattle spoke with Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the King County Councilmember who introduced the legislation.

She insisted to KOMO that cashless businesses disproportionately affect low-income individuals who depend on cash to survive and called the move to extinguish paper currency “a gentrification accelerator,” in a separate interview.

Kohl-Welles proposal was referred to committee and could be voted on by the full council in February.