by Randy Shaw on March 6, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
24th St in Noe Valley Shows Best of SF
SF Must Stop Open Drug Use, Dealing
Michael Moritz’s February 26 NY Times Op-Ed on a “broken” San Francisco unleashed strong responses. Most agreed with or challenged the structural causes for the city’s alleged breakdown.
For me the inquiry focuses on: What changed in San Francisco in recent years? What spurred the growing belief the city is “broken”? And most importantly: How quickly can what is breaking the city be fixed?
The answer to the first two questions is obvious: The city is besieged by flagrant public drug use, cartel-driven drug markets, and retail crime driven by drugs.
We didn’t have an out of control drug scene prior to 2020. The biggest complaints about pre-COVID San Francisco were how its prosperity priced out all but the rich. Few worried that the city’s street conditions were turning prospective residents, businesses, and tourists away. Drug dealing existed but entire city blocks were not controlled morning, noon and night by drug cartels.
Repairing San Francisco means eliminating the drug scene that defines the city as broken. And San Francisco can do this.
It’s always been a question of political will. Now that the 2024 elections are on the horizon, the politics are aligning to fix San Francisco.
Restoring Pre-Covid San Francisco
San Francisco always has had problems. Inconsistent MUNI service, widespread homelessness, extreme unaffordability, disoriented people walking the streets are among the city’s longstanding issues. Pre-COVID San Francisco was not paradise but few described the city as “broken.”
What changed? An unprecedented level of drug-driven lawlessness.
San Franciscans don’t expect the city to be affordable for all. They have been frustrated by homelessness for over forty years. They have complained about MUNI’s performance for even longer.
But San Franciscans and many others don’t understand why drug cartels freely operate only blocks from City Hall.
They don’t understand why people are free to shoot up drugs on sidewalks where children pass.
They don’t understand why retail businesses are robbed time and again with little police response.
They don’t understand why other cities don’t have the sidewalk drug scenes common in San Francisco.
San Franciscans know that other cities don’t have drug dealing or open drug use in public spaces.
That’s what’s changed since COVID arrived. The pervasive sense of drug-driven lawlessness is why many see the city as broken.
Restoring Public Safety
We constantly hear that San Francisco has never felt so unsafe. So the obvious questions are: 1. How can the city improve safety and 2. Is there the political will to do so?
Let’s start with the political question.
Name a city whose mayor got re-elected when voters felt they failed on public safety. I can’t think of any. I can name many—including Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot who failed to make the mayoral runoff last week—whose campaigns lost on that issue.
London Breed cannot win re-election in 2024 if voters current views of the city’s safety crisis remain. Breed’s poll numbers have plunged as drug markets and retail break ins have grown; she must use 2023 to convince voters that she is doing all she can to make San Francisco safer.
Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who is preparing a mayoral run, recognizes Breed’s vulnerability on safety. Safai has focused on rising retail crime, a citywide issue. Expect other mayoral candidates to look at Chicago and go full speed ahead on branding Breed as incapable of protecting San Francisco.
San Francisco’s mayor controls public safety. But supervisors play a critical role in approving funds for public safety enforcement. That’s why “progressive” supervisors opposition to funding police to crackdown on drug dealers and retail theft is so foolish on policy and political grounds.
Supervisors like Connie Chan and Dean Preston are telling voters that they, not the mayor, are to blame for public safety concerns. Last week, Chan refused to schedule a hearing on the $27 million SFPD/DA supplemental despite the Board waiving the standard 30-day delay for legislation precisely so the supplemental could be heard March 8.
Chan’s protection of drug dealers doesn’t play well citywide or in her district. A supervisor who won by less than 150 votes in 2020 when crime was not a top issue is in deep political trouble in 2024 over her stance on public safety. Chan either suddenly changes course or loses re-election.
While Chan was using her position as Budget Chair to block a vote on increasing police funding, D5 Supervisor Dean Preston was explaining to the Tenderloin Business Coalition why he opposed the funding necessary to continue the month long Tenderloin crackdown on dealers. Preston believes the SFPD has plenty of money to close drug markets. He also claims that ambassadors can stop drug dealing, confirming he rarely visits where dealers operate in the Tenderloin.
For an attorney, Preston is remarkably impervious to facts. Preston is also vulnerable in 2024 on the public safety issue.
Nevertheless, there is a clear Board majority willing to do what is necessary to improve public safety. So if Mayor Breed and the Board are together on restoring safety, why hasn’t it happened?
From Silent to Vocal Majority
The past month in the Tenderloin has shown City Hall can improve safety when it chooses to do so. Two massive open air drug markets were shut down on 300 Hyde and 600 Eddy and have not re-emerged elsewhere.
Evening drug dealing at 300 Golden Gate remains a problem. And drug markets in SOMA, Mid-Market and the Mission can and must also be closed.
Why hasn’t this happened yet? Because some supervisors look at the 45% of the electorate that opposed the DA recall and favored a disciple of Chesa Boudin over Brooke Jenkins in the Novembe 2022 DA’s race and are reluctant to demand the arrest of drug dealers.
Until recently this 45% has been more vocal. Outside many stellar reporters on television news, the city’s print and online news publications are out of sync with the 55% who want drug dealers and retail thieves prosecuted.
But thanks to neighborhood groups like the Castro Merchants Association and Tenderloin Business Coalition and citywide organizations like TogetherSF Action, the politics of public safety have shifted.
The silent majority concerned with public safety is quiet no more. Small businesses who hoped that the drug and crime wave would blow over realize that their voices must be heard for their businesses to survive.
The SFPD is ready to meaningfully address public safety. Assuming the Board approves the $27 million SFPD/DA supplemental, the San Francisco we knew before the crime upsurge can return.
San Francisco must restore confidence in public safety. The city can start the process this week with approval of the Urban Alchemy contract on March 8 and the police/DA supplemental on March 15.
But that’s just a start. San Franciscans must continue to speak out loudly in support of police arrests of dealers, the removal of users from public areas, and the expansion of treatment options to get people off drugs.
Everyone concerned about a “broken” San Francisco needs to ensure that candidates’ stances on the drug crisis is central in the city’s 2024 elections. If the people lead, the politicians will follow.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
