by Randy Shaw on June 20, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
Business Group Rebuffs Supervisor’s Lie
D5 Supervisor Dean Preston was not elected by Tenderloin voters. The spring 2022 redistricting process shifted him to representing the neighborhood against his will.
It has not been a good match.
Working families living in the Tenderloin have repeatedly called for police enforcement to close drug markets (See “Tenderloin Families March for Safety,” November 9, 2021). Those running small businesses in the neighborhood insist that open air drug dealing deters customers, promotes violence, and puts working families at risk.
Notwithstanding what residents and businesses say they need, Preston insists that increased law enforcement is the wrong approach.
Last December the Tenderloin Business Coalition circulated a petition calling for the closure of drug markets. Over 200 businesses signed. Heather Knight wrote a great story about the group’s efforts.
But when Preston met with the group in February, he rejected their concerns. Last week he told the SF Chronicle that “I don’t spend as much time meeting with the business interests that have made it clear they want to arrest and incarcerate drug users in San Francisco.”
Preston’s claim was a lie. And the Tenderloin Business Coalition publicly called him out on it.
The group’s June 15, 2023 Response to Preston stated, “The TBC has never advocated for the arrest or incarceration of drug users. The TBC’s singular objective is unambiguous: To focus the attention of City leaders and resources on closing the open-air drug markets that have operated with impunity in our neighborhood for far too long. You can read the public demands we made in our petition which was signed by over 200 business operators and property owners from your district and previously submitted to your office.”
Preston knew the group’s position because he had it in writing. But apparently afraid it looked bad for him to protect Honduran drug cartels selling deadly drugs over Tenderloin small businesses, he misrepresented the group’s stance.
Preston’s Doublc Standard on Small Business
Many believe that Preston’s espousal of democratic socialism makes him oppose small businesses. This is false. Most democratic socialists want a thriving small business economy. It’s a progressive, local alternative to national chain stores and Amazon.
Preston is very pro-small business in Hayes Valley, the Haight-Ashbury and other gentrified neighborhoods. But in the Tenderloin, whose businesses are typically working-class, immigrant and/or women run, he gives small businesses the back of his hand.
Why the double standard? Preston wants the Tenderloin to be a permanent citywide drug dealer and user containment zone. A neighborhood-size Navigation and Linkage Center. He seeks to return the Tenderloin to the days when it was a containment zone, rather than the host of thriving small businesses and working families that emerged prior to COVID.
Vibrant retail is the key to successful neighborhoods. Vibrant retail requires public safety. The Tenderloin Business Coalition promotes the public safety necessary to keep Tenderloin businesses alive.
That’s why Preston dismisses the group. The TBC’s agenda challenges Preston’s plan to convert the Tenderloin into a neighborhood where only nonprofits service agencies survive.
Driving small businesses out of the Tenderloin leaves retail space plentiful for city-funded nonprofits. Preston’s aggressive push for a so-called “Wellness Hub” in the Tenderloin and his misguided praise for the failed UN Plaza Linkage Center is consistent with this vision.
Here’s what I keep wondering. Why doesn’t a supervisor committed to fighting gentrification equally advocate for businesses in non-gentrified neighborhoods? Dean Preston should be the last elected official who would discriminate against the working-class Tenderloin on behalf of gentrified neighborhoods.
It’s really disappointing to see Supervisor Preston not protect the neighborhoods he has long claimed to care most about. Tenderloin small businesses deserve better.
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
