At first glance, this news item out of Chicago probably sounds like the least exciting announcement imaginable. Portillo’s restaurants operate in many parts of the city, serving up traditional “Chicago-style” food like hot dogs and sandwiches, and almost all of them have a drive-thru. But starting today, they’re making a change in how they do business. To order at the drive-thru, you’ll need to be paying for your order with a credit card or a debit card. Cash will no longer be accepted, so if you only have cash, you’ll need to go inside to order.

That may not sound like a very big deal. And the management is telling people that the change is only being made to speed up the service customers receive. But is that really the reason? Recent events suggest otherwise. (CBS News Chicago)

When you hit the Portillo’s drive-thru, make sure you have your debit or credit card ready.

Starting Monday, every Portillo’s location will be cashless in the drive-thrus.

Owners hope this will make it easier for you to get those fries even faster.

So they want you to “get those fries even faster.” That certainly sounds nice of them, but it doesn’t make much sense. For an experienced worker at the drive-thru window, does it really take that much less time to swipe a card, print out a receipt, and hand it to the customer than it does to take a twenty dollar bill from them and hand them their change? Okay, perhaps it’s a few seconds faster, but would that noticeably improve the speed and quality of service?

An alternate explanation is on the table without pondering this for too long. Over the past couple of years, the crime rates in Chicago have been skyrocketing. And drive-thru windows are a common target for thieves. In fact, while the management didn’t mention this to CBS, in an interview with ABC News, they admitted that violent crime at the drive-thru was part of the reason. (Emphasis mine)

The company said the change is being done for worker’s safety, since several drive-thru workers have been robbed or threatened while on the job.

Portillo’s said the change is expected to shorten drive-through times for customers.

There’s no point in trying to hide the reality out on Chicago’s streets. There have recently been armed robberies at McDonald’s. At some restaurants, armed thieves steal the entire register. These robbers are regularly caught on video, and even that doesn’t slow them down.

We saw similar changes being made at some fast food outlets in Baltimore recently. Could that have anything to do with the two men who committed a string of armed robberies at McDonald’s drive-thrus? Or the guy who specialized in robbing Burger King pickup windows at gunpoint? At another Burger King, an armed robber tried to climb in through the window to get at the cash register himself. The worker managed to push him back outside without getting shot (thankfully), but he still had a gun in his face.

So let’s stop pretending that this isn’t going on and trying to spin these decisions as some sort of enhanced customer service perk, shall we? These stores are doing away with cash service at the drive-thrus because it’s simply not safe to have a cash register with money in it open to the streets. Crime is out of control and the workers at the windows should be issued body armor at this point. And the municipal governments of these cities aren’t doing anywhere near enough to stop the madness.