{"id":47718,"date":"2026-04-15T11:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47718"},"modified":"2026-04-15T11:58:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:58:19","slug":"has-san-francisco-really-sobered-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/04\/15\/has-san-francisco-really-sobered-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Has San Francisco Really Sobered Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Randy Shaw<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0April 13, 2026 (BeyondChron.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Op-ed said SF sidewalks were now clear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitor\u2019s Misleading Account of SF<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week the NY Times<\/em> featured an op-ed titled, \u201cSan Francisco Sobers Up<\/a>.\u201d The piece credited Mayor Daniel Lurie with transforming the city\u2019s culture. Former President Bill Clinton tweeted the op-ed<\/a>, calling it \u201cA great in-depth look at the real progress being made in the fight against overdoses and addiction in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But was German Lopez\u2019s op-ed really an \u201cin-depth look?\u201d Not by an historian or reporter\u2019s standards. In fact, I would describe the op-ed as a powerful work of fiction. Or a highly-skilled example of gaslighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the premise of the op-ed is that Lopez found San Francisco much improved from his prior visit. That visit was in 2023, when San Francisco had far more sidewalk drug activities and encampments than when Daniel Lurie took office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I visited San Francisco in 2023, parts of the city looked like open-air drug dens. Users made homes in tents that lined block after block. They bought, sold and smoked fentanyl, crack and meth in public. They used drugs in front of a police station, visibly undeterred by the threat of the law. I once saw four people hunched over, in what\u2019s called the <\/em>fentanyl fold<\/em><\/a>, along a sidewalk in sight of City Hall. It was a startling vision of what had gone wrong with West Coast progressivism<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, during his recent visit Lopez \u201cspotted public drug use much less frequently. Officials didn\u2019t ignore the remaining addicts. Community ambassadors made sure that people didn\u2019t treat sidewalks as campgrounds. I could move through the city without having to walk in the road\u2014something most of American mercifully takes for granted<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez never identified what neighborhoods he recently visited. He clearly did not walk in the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin has multiple sidewalks where drug activities require people to walk in the street (see above photo from last week). And the city\u2019s most drug-filled intersection is only a block from Tenderloin Police Station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez could easily have asked members of the Tenderloin Business Coalition whether they thought San Francisco has sobered up. He did not do so. In fact, his portrait of San Francisco ignores the Tenderloin entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez\u2019s op-ed came out the same day as my story on the Lurie Administration\u2019s backing nonprofits<\/a> handing out drug paraphernalia in the Tenderloin. Does that sound to you like the city is \u201csobering up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez could have argued that the city\u2019s ongoing support for drug handouts to street addicts proves the city has not sobered up. But he ignored the city\u2019s official legal position entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Lopez claims that \u201cSan Francisco still has harm reduction services, such as needle exchanges, but they\u2019re treated as a bridge to treatment, not the end game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does handing out drug paraphernalia to street addicts become a \u201cbridge to treatment\u201d? Lopez neither acknowledges this contradiction nor provides evidence to support his claim. Facts can\u2019t get in the way of his San Francisco is sobering up thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez\u2019s op-ed came soon after Emily Hoeven<\/a> of the SF Chronicl<\/em>e wrote about ongoing drug activities in SOMA. She offered a very different picture of San Francisco from the New Yorker who visited the city for a few days. Unlike Lopez, Hoeven talked to members of the SOMA West Neighborhood Association<\/a> who have long complained about sidewalk behavior that contradicts Lopez\u2019s thesis. SOMA West is backing a state complaint about conditions in the neighborhood. Its members do not see SOMA as \u201csobering up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez also apparently ignored the videos of sidewalk drug activities in the Mission that JJ Smith regularly posts<\/a> on social media. I don\u2019t think those living or working around Mission and 16th would say the area has \u201csobered up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez also ignored Beyond Chron\u2019s ongoing coverage<\/a> of drug activities on Van Ness near Cathedral Hill. As Sebastian Luke wrote in January 2026, \u201cMany mentally ill and drug users still roam around the Van Ness corridor, leaving residents and businesses to deal with them alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given his before and after thesis, knowing precisely where the improvement he claims to have witnessed has taken place matters. Last week I sent multiple tweets to Lopez asking where he went in San Francisco. I got no response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez\u2019s piece came only days after former FOX News host and serial sex harasser Bill O\u2019Reilly did a scathing story on San Francisco. O\u2019Reilly found a city overwhelmed by sidewalk drug activities, not one that sobered up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know what O\u2019Reilly reported because people told me. I did not watch his episode because I don\u2019t believe he has any credibility.  He and Lopez parachuted into San Francisco and then felt confident promoting broader conclusions about what they saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s stop claiming these op-ed and television claims have any substantive rigor. Those who live or work in San Francisco know the realities of city streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco Has Improved<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most agree that San Francisco has improved under Lurie. He\u2019s made people feel better about the city\u2019s direction. But Lurie has yet to meaningfully reduce drug activities in the neighborhoods most beset with these problems when he took office. Most neighborhoods that never suffered from open air drug markets prior to Covid are doing great. But they were also on the rise prior to Lurie taking office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Lopez should have reported is that affluent neighborhoods are thriving but that San Francisco still has the most visible open air drug activities of any other major city. The mayor\u2019s commitment to treatment has not changed this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lopez states in his bio<\/a> that \u201cMy goal with every story is to uncover the truth, which requires hearing from multiple sides of a major event or issue.\u201d He failed to hear from multiple sides in this op-ed.<\/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 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Posts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Randy Shaw\u00a0on\u00a0April 13, 2026 (BeyondChron.org) Op-ed said SF sidewalks were now clear Visitor\u2019s Misleading Account of SF Last week the NY Times featured an op-ed titled, \u201cSan Francisco Sobers Up.\u201d The piece credited Mayor Daniel Lurie with transforming the city\u2019s culture. Former President Bill Clinton tweeted the op-ed, calling it \u201cA great in-depth… 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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47718"}],"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=47718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47719,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47718\/revisions\/47719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}