by Randy Shaw on July 7, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
Drug scene outside 685 Ellis
My daughter returned from New York City last week noting that NYC doesn’t have widespread open-air drug use like San Francisco. I’ve heard the same about Chicago, Boston, LA and other cities. Mayor Lurie campaigned to close drug markets. He remains 100% committed. So what’s holding progress back?
It’s a question many are asking as Mayor Lurie completes his first six months.
Sidewalks remain drug-filled around 16th and Mission and Sixth Street, along with other parts of the Mission and SOMA. The same is true in the Tenderloin on Leavenworth, Jones, Ellis and other blocks. Two people were shot at Leavenworth and Ellis Saturday night, adding to the many recent shootings in the area. On Sunday a drug-caused car explosion occurred a block away.
The clearing out of drug users from Jefferson Square Park has remained (See “It’s a New Dawn, New Day, New Life For SF’s Jefferson Square Park,” May 5). The tent count is also dramatically down under Lurie. But in place of tents users sit in chairs on sidewalks using drugs. Mid-Market and the area around UN Plaza has fewer public drug users than in the darkest days but still enough to hurt nearby businesses.
Tourists still complain about highly visible public drug use. Residents attending local entertainment venues and popular residents report the same.
Is it too soon to expect more progress? It might be. What concerns me is that June saw far more drug activity in the Tenderloin and other neighborhoods than in March. We’re not seeing steady progress.
The triage center installed on Sixth Street reduced activity for a few weeks but the area is now as drug-filled as ever. The area around Little Saigon improved but the city still allows public drug use around the tourist hotel it bought and converted to a shelter at 685 Ellis (See “Did SF Falsely Obtain $18.2 Million in State Housing Funds?”, June 2, 2025). In addition to the above photo of the area outside 685 Ellis, the Pinned tweet from @Citizenj17 shows drug activity there dominating the sidewalk.
The city knows what’s happening at 685 Ellis. It has done nothing to stop it.
Public drug users exist in other cities. But they are nowhere near as pervasive as in San Francisco. They are not found near major theaters, upscale tourist hotels, and prominent event spaces as happens in San Francisco.
Why the lack of progress?
The shortage of 500 officers is an obvious answer. Captains, frustrated by drug-filled sidewalks in their districts, lack officers to call upon. Drug activity is probably more visible in the past month because officers began taking vacations when schools get out like many families.
Mayor Lurie has announced strategies to expand the force by making it easier to hire retired officers and those in other jurisdictions. The city is also reforming its academy process, which is longer and more difficult than is necessary. But it will take time for the 500 officer deficit to be filled.
The biggest obstacle is that drug tourists still arrive. I know Mayor Lurie has time and again pledged to end drug tourism. Police leaders believe that the city no longer sends the message that public drug use will be tolerated in San Francisco.
But those who connect with sidewalk drug users find that virtually none are from San Francisco. They see or hear how drug-filled sidewalks are tolerated here and decide to come.
City Still Promotes Drug Tourism
Soon after Lurie took offices leases on two hotels promoting drug tourism—the Monarch at 1015 Geary and the Adante at 610 Geary– were up for extension. HSH sought to grant five year extensions despite the sidewalk drug use these tourist hotels converted to shelters promoted. The Tenderloin and Lower Nob Hill communities rose up in opposition to these extensions. Mayor Lurie’s office then deferred to community sentiment and limited the extensions to one year.
But another year of the city funding a destructive drug environment simply perpetuates drug-filled sidewalks. The city is allowing these two hotels to continuing damaging nearby businesses and threatening the safety of area residents until the end of 2025. Neither have ambassadors. This despite one lower Polk resident sending photos of drug activity outside the Monarch nearly every day.
Bottom line: the hotels turned shelters promoting drug tourism in the Tenderloin and Little Saigon are functioning just as they were at the start of the Lurie Administration. So its no surprise that nearby drug-filled sidewalks remain.
Positive Actions
Mayor Lurie has stopped the sidewalk distribution of drug paraphernalia by city workers and nonprofits. That is huge. He also fully funded law enforcement, including a District Attorney who never allows a Tenderloin drug dealer to go free.
Lurie’s team announced at last week’s Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMAAC) meeting that ambassadors would be dispatched to Sixth Street and 16th and Mission to address sidewalk drug use. The plan is for the former triage site on Sixth to reopen as a drug-free Oasis as exists at Turk and Hyde.
Lurie is also publicly backing Assemblymember Matt Haney’s AB255, which allows state funds to be used for drug-free housing. And he is funding temporary drug-free housing, though permanent drug-free options are still missing.
People like how Lurie consistently sends a positive message about San Francisco’s future. They see him as fueling hopes for a Union Square and Downtown revival.
But San Francisco cannot really claim to “be back” when residents and visitors alike see scenes of public drug use that are not found in other tourist cities. Drug use that continues to harm small businesses and the local economy.
It now falls upon Interim Chief Paul Yep to implement new strategies to resume progress in closing open air drug markets. We should all hope he succeeds.
Because we can’t have a San Francisco Comeback with drug users filling our sidewalks.
Want to learn about the Tenderloin’s rich history? Pick up Randy Shaw’s updated book, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. To support the Tenderloin Museum, buy the book at https://www.tenderloinmuseum.org/buy-the-book
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 new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. 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.
