{"id":27452,"date":"2023-07-19T15:54:44","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T22:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27452"},"modified":"2023-07-19T15:54:46","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T22:54:46","slug":"san-francisco-hands-another-victory-to-drug-cartel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/19\/san-francisco-hands-another-victory-to-drug-cartel\/","title":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO HANDS ANOTHER VICTORY TO DRUG CARTEL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Randy Shaw<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0July 17, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dealers surrounding La Cocina at night<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Cocina\u2019s Closure Reflects Broader Failure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the police were consistent with their patrols and efforts, people would come out here at night,\u201d Morffet said. \u201cThe cops drive by and look, and they don\u2019t do anything,\u201d Haysbert agreed<\/em>.\u2014La Cocina security guards,  SF Chronicle, July 12<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many are devastated over the closing of the Tenderloin\u2019s La Cocina Municipal Marketplace. Heather Knight\u2019s July 12 story<\/a> captured the causes, particularly highlighting the SFPD\u2019s failure to keep the area around the market safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Cocina\u2019s closure has even broader and more troubling impacts. Its fate contradicts City Hall\u2019s core economic strategy for the Tenderloin, Mid-Market, distressed portions of SOMA and other parts of San Francisco: activating retail spaces to displace drug activities and promote revitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activating Retail Spaces<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could provide many examples where activating positive public street activity displaced drug dealers and users and revitalized key parts of Mid-Market and the Tenderloin. I can also provide counter-examples. The three areas long used for Tenderloin drug dealing\u2014-101 Hyde, 200 Hyde, and the south side of the unit block of Turk\u2014all lacked viable businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tenderloin\u2019s role as a drug \u201ccontainment\u201d zone\u2014I discuss in The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco<\/a>  how City Hall\u2019s negative transformation of the long thriving neighborhood came about\u2014typically limited drug sales to vacant retail and parking lots. New businesses were protected, which encouraged investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But La Cocina and the nearby recently closed Whole Foods show that today\u2019s SFPD no longer enforces this activation strategy. Under the leadership of Chief Scott, new businesses are no longer protected from drug dealers and users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Cocina\u2019s demise is particularly sad for me. I spent two decades working with residents and businesses to stop ongoing drug dealing on the corner of Golden Gate and Hyde. One of our protests at the site even included the then Captain Gary Jimenez of Tenderloin Station, who publicly urged more police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city\u2019s purchase of the site and its leasing to La Cocina offered a solution to these activities. I pushed La Cocina to be the tenant because I saw it as attracting people from across the city to come to the Tenderloin\u2014which it did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the city owned the building housing La Cocina improved chances the area would be clear of dealers. Wouldn\u2019t protecting a women-run public marketplace in a city-owned building in the Tenderloin be a top San Francisco priority?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought so. So did others. We were all wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turned out that the drug cartel was more committed to regaining its former space than the SFPD was to protecting a vital public marketplace. The dealers never left the area while police looked the other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cartel figured it could outlast La Cocina by putting it out of business\u2014and the cartel succeeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For nearly two years La Cocina was surrounded by the largest evening open air drug market in the Tenderloin. The photo above does not fully capture how the entire Golden Gate side of the building was covered with as many as fifty dealers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dealers made the place off limits for the dinners and evening drinks central to La Cocina\u2019s economic plan. Chief Scott never laid down the gauntlet ensuring La Cocina full police protection into the evening hours; instead, Scott opened the site to drug tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that despite pledges from elected officials, negative media coverage of the cartel\u2019s negative impact on San Francisco, and all the social media posts, the drug cartels are expanding<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are more dealers across the city today than ever before. Yet Chief Scott continues to push a failed strategy<\/a> of undercover cops rather than uniformed beat patrols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Megan Cassidy\u2019s powerful SF Chronicle story<\/a>, San Francisco allows dealers to earn $350,000 a year selling drugs that kill people and force the closure of small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No wonder drug dealing is expanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drug tourism is wrecking San Francisco. We have dealers, users, unhoused drug addicts and violent criminals coming to a city where they feel the police lets them get away with their crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understand why Mayor Breed feels that if she fired Chief Scott she should pick the new chief rather than the Police Commission. I support a proposed charter amendment for November 2024 shifting this power to the mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But San Francisco can\u2019t wait until 2025 to revitalize distressed neighborhoods. And many potential investors will see what happened at La Cocina and Whole Foods and conclude that it is too risky to open new businesses in these areas  so long as Chief Scott remains in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the city is serious about economic revitalization, Scott must go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy Shaw<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco\u2019s 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<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Randy Shaw\u00a0on\u00a0July 17, 2023 (BeyondChron.org) Dealers surrounding La Cocina at night La Cocina\u2019s Closure Reflects Broader Failure \u201cIf the police were consistent with their patrols and efforts, people would come out here at night,\u201d Morffet said. \u201cThe cops drive by and look, and they don\u2019t do anything,\u201d Haysbert agreed.\u2014La Cocina… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[821],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27453,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27452\/revisions\/27453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}