In the week after police officers swarmed 16th and Mission streets, a raid touted by Mayor Daniel Lurie and Chief Bill Scott as an exemplar of a new era of law enforcement, the 16th Street BART plaza underwent its regular ebb and flow.
Police officers drove onto the plaza in SUVs, dispersing the gathered street vendors, drug users and dealers and other plaza denizens โ but not far. Some of them moved a few doors down, into a nearby alley or side street. The officers stay for a time, but when they drive off, the people come back and the cycle starts again.
The Whac-A-Mole approach to enforcement at the 16th Street and 24th Street BART plazas has been a constant since the pandemic, though the conditions at 16th and Mission have rarely been so chaotic as they are now. The police department, for its part, acknowledges the cat-and-mouse nature of its strategy: Scott said last week that the police approach was to chase drug dealers from one โtroubled spotโ to the next.
โThe long-term strategy is that they go to other neighborhoods, then we have to go there as well. Thatโs something that we are working on and weโre getting better at,โ he said, standing alongside Lurie at a press conference at City Hall. The officials pointed to the departmentโs work from the prior night: Four arrests and almost exactly one ounce of drugs seized. Officials have not specified the kind of drugs they seized.
โWe are just getting started,โ pledged Lurie, saying the city would be โrelentlessโ in cleaning up these areas.
Is it working? Mission Local spent 10 hours at the 16th and Mission plaza on Monday and Tuesday to get a better sense of the goings-on, hour by hour.
Monday, March 10
4 p.m.
The southwestern section of 16th Street plaza has no fixed occupants other than fruit vendors and a police car. The northeastern corner, however, is not quite the same. A dozen people have laid down blankets, plastic tarps or cardboard on which to display their wares.
More vendors keep on arriving, until the bus stop and sidewalk are barely penetrable.
There are clothes, tools, cleaning supplies, beauty supplies, shoes, cigarettes, speakers, household goods, medications, food and even shiny new hatchets. One vendor hardly believes there are no takers for his $200 food benefits card (EBT). Heโll let it go for $30, he says.
โNo one?โ he yells. โDamn โฆ Iโve never seen this.โ
โIโm here almost every day. Itโs my hustle, but hey, they can take your stuff,โ says another vendor named Tyler, who moved from Civic Center a few weeks ago. โI say, ‘Fuck the corporations.’ I donโt steal from individuals.โ
Tyler uses some of the money he makes to get high, he says. He finds most of the items he sells around the city, like clothes, shoes and appliances. โPeople throw out good stuff.โ
As we talk, vendors start frantically packing up their items and throwing them into large canvas bags. Across the street, two police officers and two Public Works employees walk toward us.
A few vendors scatter behind the plaza. Most stay put with their bags around their shoulders. The police and Public Works employees arrive and slowly survey the scene.
โFuck you!โ yells a man, still stuffing the clothes he sells for $1 apiece into a large trash bag.
The officials walk around for 10 minutes, then leave without confiscating anything. The open bazaar is back in swing.
Half an hour later, the police and DPW workers return, and the scene repeats.
This time, the police stay. So do the vendors, packed bags in hand. Each side waits for the other to leave first.
5 p.m.
Itโs a long wait. The two police officers are still standing in the plaza. The vendors are getting restless. One vendor surreptitiously manages to sell a six-pack of Ensure formula to a woman just a few feet away from the officers. Another is selling Denim brand cigarettes (packs and singles) from a large duffel bag; he manages to keep his cigarette gig going, despite the law enforcement presence.
โThis place is a shithole. Look at all these people high on fentanyl,โ says the cigarette man. Heโs been a San Francisco resident for 25 years, he says. โItโs the liberal politics of this city that have ruined everything, leaving us people to pay the price.โ
Around 5:30 p.m., two athletic and sharply dressed men in suits, ties and sunglasses walk onto the plaza. They look suspiciously like police officers, but not many pay attention. A few minutes later, Mayor Daniel Lurie arrives.
โAre you okay?โ Lurie says to someone slumped over on one of the plaza steps. โCan we get you some help?โ
Lurie continues through the plaza, followed by the men in suits, introducing himself, asking if people need help, and reminding others not to block the sidewalk. Some people do need help, they tell the mayor. When that happens, Lurie asks one of his aides to hand them a business card. Lurie crosses the street to the southwestern plaza and does the same thing before jaywalking across 16th Street toward Wiese Street.
โWho the fuck is that?โ asks Donald White, one of the men standing on Wiese Street, a short, alley-like block generally littered with trash and detritus.
โDaniel Lurie, the mayor,โ I say.
โShit. Mayor. I need help!โ says White. โGet me housing and treatment.โ
The aide hands White a card. โMake sure you get in touch with us,โ says Lurie.
โI will,โ says White.
Lurie moves on to Julian Street, shakes more hands. He stops to chat with a group standing outside a residential hotel. โIโm six months pregnant,โ says one woman. She just got kicked out of her housing for coming in just past the 9:30 p.m. curfew, she tells the mayor.
She, too, receives a business card from Lurieโs aide.
โThatโs cool as fuck thatโs heโs here,โ says one of the men on Julian Street. โI see him almost every day โฆ way different from the previous administrationโs approach.โ
6 p.m.
The police officers and Public Works employees are gone. About 11 vendors are selling openly again at the northeastern BART plaza. Most of them are the same ones who waited for law enforcement to leave earlier.
The wares now include laundry detergent, boxes of trash bags, steaks, ribs, cans of Red Bull, chocolate, crayons, pens, tape, fabric softener, toothpaste and new sets of bed sheets.
โSmoked oysters here,โ repeats a woman who can barely stand up.
Across the street, the police are arresting a woman. They have a warrant for her, one of the officers says.
Thirty minutes later, two new police officers and the same two Public Works employees arrive at the northeastern corner. Once again, the laundry detergent, steaks, and Red Bull disappear into bags. Some of the sellers just got here, and they grumble with frustration to see the police linger.
The police officers are working the graveyard shift plus overtime, in part, to support Public Works employees, they say.
โWe canโt force them to leave, because a lot of these people donโt have a place to go,โ said one of the officers.
7 p.m.
The police and Public Works staffers cross the street to the southwestern plaza. Immediately, the vendors start unpacking. The police and Public Work staff observe it all from across the intersection and, shortly thereafter, leave, taking the police car that has been parked at the plaza for hours with them.
Now itโs a free-for-all. Within minutes, about 20 vendors have lined up at the southeastern corner of Mission Street, selling steaks, clothes, shoes, hats, laundry, socks and all kinds of groceries.
โTheyโre $10 apiece or two for $15,โ says a man selling Safeway steaks with the price tags still on them.
The paramedics come back, loading a woman into the back of an ambulance.
8 p.m.
A solitary police officer returns and walks around the plaza. A dozen people keep selling.
Another woman is taken away by paramedics. She screams loudly as she is wheeled into the ambulance.
Two teenage kids, or perhaps younger, arrive carrying large toys still in boxes.
โ$15 apiece!โ they yell.
A few firefighters remain at the plaza, attending to a man with a swollen eye. His friends had beckoned them over, asking for help. Someone punched him in the face, they say.
โIโve seen a change here in the last couple of months. Things look much worse than they did in the past,โ one of the firefighters says.
When asked if he thinks itโs connected to the recent crackdowns on drug use in the Tenderloin and SoMa, the firefighter replies, โI donโt know. I can only speak to what I see.โ
Police cars drive past at least twice, but donโt stop.
9 p.m.
Nearly 20 vendors still remain. The plaza is still crowded. A stone’s throw away on Weise Street it’s bustling, too. Itโs clear at this point that there are multiple economies at work. Some people come here to buy and sell goods. Some people come here to buy and sell drugs. Some people come here to steal from people who are buying or selling.
Be careful, the regulars warn me, not for the first time. Thereโs a whole community here, and outsiders stand out.
Itโs clear at this point that there are multiple economies at work. Some people come here to buy and sell goods. Some people come here to buy and sell drugs. Some people come here to steal from people who are buying or selling.
I decamp at 9:10 p.m.
Tuesday, March 11
8 a.m.
There are eight vendors at the southwestern 16th Street BART plaza. They have set up behind the bus stop where a small crowd waits for the 14-Mission and 49-Van Ness โ parents with children, workers in office clothes, seniors.
Itโs early and chilly; a few sellers sip coffee while they do their best to lure in half a dozen people perusing their wares. Among the items for sale: Boots, jeans, food, cleaning supplies, Pampers and a bottle of champagne. Most of the products vary in price from around $5 to $15, but deals are usually cut if one buys in bulk.
There are no officers present.
One couple has set up a breakfast stand where they hawk steaming tamales, coffee and champurrado, a warm Oaxacan chocolate and masa drink.
The plaza is calm; a few people are passed out or sleeping on the steps. A few more are sitting around, hanging out.
9 a.m.
There are about six vendors left after the morning rush. The police usually come around this hour and leave a vehicle, the regulars say.
One of the vendors is selling Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner and hair dye next to jackets, T-shirts, jeans and sweatpants, all new-looking. Also: two bottles of extra virgin olive oil at $5 a pop.
โYouโd pay at least $10 at the store,โ she says. Sheโll let the sweatpants go for $2.
The couple selling tamales is still doing a little business. No matter how early they show up in the morning, one says, the vendors have already posted up.
A man named Tommy is selling a red Giant bicycle, a small bike bag with a replacement inner tube still in it, and an assortment of bike tools.
โGive me $160,โ says Tommy. โIโll cut you a deal and throw in all the tools for $170.โ He usually sells phones, bikes and speakers; sometimes at the 16th Street plaza, sometimes downtown.
Bikes, he says, are the most popular items. He bought the one he was selling from a friend for $100, he claims. โIโm making 60 bucks here โฆ not bad.โ
10 a.m.
All the vendors are gone. A police car is parked on the plaza, next to a large BART truck. Inside the truck, the driver looks at his phone. A man changing the garbage bag at the โpit stopโ bathroom gyrates to the funk music blasting from a passing bicycle.
The plaza used to be more crowded with vendors, he says, but now โIt seems like itโs getting better and better since the cops started fucking with them.โ
Outside the Wells Fargo on 16th, Richard Martinez, a security guard, agrees that there seem to be fewer people around selling stolen goods now that the police show up more.
โI think itโs gentrification,โ says Martinez, about the police presence. โAs you gentrify the neighborhood further, you need to make everything cleaner for people.โ Gentrification isnโt such a bad thing, he says, if thatโs what it takes to clean up the area. โHey, Iโm from here โฆ if the Mission doesnโt change, then weโre gonna be left behind.โ
Martinez points just across the street from the bank to Wiese Street, which is packed with people hanging out, lying down, drinking. Thatโs the hardcore alley, he says.
Heโs here from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and sees the cops come and move everyone out of the alley about four to five times a day. โIt doesnโt make any difference,โ he says.
11 a.m.
The vendors are still gone. People are still hanging out on the steps. Two Public Works employees, a police officer and two paramedics provide attention to a man who had too much to drink. The man tells police that he had two tallboys of Steel Reserve. They sit him down and take his vitals before heโs carted off in an ambulance.
Just the presence of police at the plaza tends to keep vendors from setting up shop, says a cop on-site. But it only deters them from the real estate directly occupied by the officers. โIโm here doing beat patrol by myself,โ the officer continues. โItโs really hard to enforce all the areas when you donโt have enough officers.โ
Behind him, two men near the BART stationโs stairs wave their arms frantically in the officerโs direction. He runs to find a man lying on the ground, barely awake, head resting on the concrete wall, surrounded by multiple crushed Budweiser cans.
โYou okay?โ asks the officer. The man can barely formulate words. โHeโs good,โ the officer tells the two men who hailed him. โThe paramedics checked on him.โ
12 p.m.
The police car is gone. About half a dozen vendors are back in business, though this time at the northeastern corner of 16th and Mission streets.
Senior citizens arrive and set out canned goods, vegetables and fruits next to the vendors selling clothing. Suddenly, all the attention shifts to a man who has just arrived with large bags of Doritos and Cheetos. Heโs selling them for $2 apiece and, for a minute or two, heโs the most popular vendor of all.
One of the men who has been hanging out in the plaza since early in the morning calls me over and tells me to stop taking photos. โA lot of people here are dangerous and unpredictable,โ he says in Spanish, adding that many of them carry โlarge knives.โ
โSome people donโt come alone, and you donโt know whoโs watching. Iโm telling you nicely: Be careful.โ
2 p.m.
I leave the plaza six hours after my arrival. The police car is back and no vendors are around, but paramedics are back at the scene, providing assistance to what appears to be the man who had passed out earlier in the morning.
And, while I intended to stay a few hours more, I understood the message imparted earlier and the fact that there are things I still donโt understand at the plaza.
It’s true: You don’t know who’s watching.
In 2008, Mission Local’s Jordon Conn spent hours at the 16th Street Plaza, where he found hustlers of a different kind. In 2022, Lydia Chavez spent a day at the 24th Street plaza, documenting a similar ebb and flow of enforcement.
Interesting article documenting what anyone with eyes can see on any given day in my poor neighborhood! The REAL question I think is – where, please tell, is our new supervisor, Jackie Fielder, and what does she plan to do to help our working-class immigrant neighborhood out of this disaster? If I were her, I would make the BART plazas (and the areas around them, especially 16th Street) my top priority, and appoint an Aide (or an Aide overseeing a team of volunteers) for each station, to help keep order and keep the area clean. Walkie-talkies, with direct lines to the police, and let’s get a Mobile Command Station there as well. We can solve this, but it takes political will!
Jackie is too worried about dreaming up a plan to replace all the drug stores in the city instead of working on the district she was elected to. After that fails she will do something else to try to get bigger attention to try to get to state level politics. She has no intentions of doing anything for D9.
“Suddenly, all the attention shifts to a man who has just arrived with large bags of Doritos and Cheetos. Heโs selling them for $2 apiece and, for a minute or two, heโs the most popular vendor of all.” You’re trying to solve it with cops, lol? Are you sure you’re from here? Respectful joke and all, but take a lesson from Dorito Cheeto guy. It’s not what you want, it’s what you got and how much people want that.
Supervisor Fielder was just grilling Lurie about this:
https://bsky.app/profile/thefrisc.bsky.social/post/3lk4xzdph7c2w
I understand that it is a top priority for her, but there might not be much she can do directly if the mayor and SFPD are determined to keep pushing our city’s problems from place to place with enforcement only, without addressing why people are doing what they’re doing. Grateful to have her represent me and push on this, though.
Looking at how the car breakins on MLK drive evaporated after the City and PD stepped up enforcement, there’s reason to believe that the garden variety vendor contingent might just give up after sustained harassment by law enforcement. Which would leave us with the “traditional” street scene of hard line addicts. Now you can place your hopes in “addressing why people are doing what theyโre doing”. But right now? There’s just chaos.
Perhaps they are doing what they are doing because they are hardened criminals and need to be in prison?
And the piles of trash they leave behind.
Well they took away like 80% of the garbage cans. Assuming they even wanted to be clean about it…
You ever see the mess? This is way beyond that mayor Newsom era thinking of how people in the street would produce less refuse if there were fewer receptacles to place it in.
You needed dumpsters really, not just bins. And yes, that’s wildly optimistically assuming the people involved would even bother to properly dispose of their trash, as opposed to just leaving it in the street mid block.
Well it requires enforcement. We have the most video surveillance per capita or mile of any major city and we can prosecute serial dumpers, casual litterers, household garbage depositors. We have decided at City Hall (apparently) that enforcing things is too hard, so we’ll just put up more cameras at the cost of millions accomplishing exactly nothing. The latest article talks about SFMTA’s Schneider saying “removing trash cans reduces street trash” which as we all know is a load of SFMTA bullsh. That’s the start of the problem – SFMTA is incompetent and dishonest, Recology is intentionally sheisty and corrupt and shirking their contract regularly, and the combination of the two at the intersection of government and paid contractor is so expensive that neither seems motivated to do anything beyond the absolute minimum. It’s classic SF.gov.
Appreciate the report.
A good ground level view of how progressive pro-drug pro-homeless pro-crime policies have let the city go to shitโฆ
Why is Safeway leaving:
โTheyโre $10 apiece or two for $15,โ says a man selling Safeway steaks with the price tags still on them. โ
Why will people not come to sf to shop, and retailing is dying (along with the tax base):
One of the men who has been hanging out in the plaza since early in the morning calls me over and tells me to stop taking photos. โA lot of people here are dangerous and unpredictable,โ he says in Spanish, adding that many of them carry โlarge knives.โ
โSome people donโt come alone, and you donโt know whoโs watching. Iโm telling you nicely: Be careful.โ
I could go on, but serious sanctions for illegal activities are needed.
Oh please. Safeway is leaving? Since when? You mean the 1 in the Fillmore? Well, since you weren’t paying attention, it is leaving because there’s one at Church & Market, a Target & Trader Joe’s at Geary & Masonic & there is a Lucky at Fulton & Masonic. A huge number of people began using supermarket delivery services (Instacart, etc) during the pandemic & never went back to shopping in store. The stores can consolidate their delivery workers into a single store & deliver from there. There are no longer enough in store customers to justify keeping that extra store open. Same goes for Walgreens & CVS locations closing. Please start reading the business news more. There, now that I’ve explained it to you, you have a basic understanding. You’re welcome.
Good point Elon. San Francisco can be Great Again if the cops round up all the progressive homeless mentally-ill drug addicts who govern our city and throw them in jail. Or deport them to Texas.
Anyone without a proper permit should have the good seized and if it is obviously stolen, arrest them. People selling their own EBT cards should be terminated from the program, or at least suspended for a few months. People selling food from the food bank should be prohibited from using the food bank for a few months, or entirely. The plaza is not usable by commuters most of the day and Wiese and Julian Street are impassable.
This is why business is down on Valencia Street. Not the bike lane. People don’t feel safe coming to the city.
I am now rarely willing to wade through that dreck to get to Valencia street- as are most of my neighbors– yes for sure a reason why legit businesses are suffering. Super sad what District 9s past and present supervisors have let happen. None of that Junk people that people are selling down there is “Artisan Crafts” its drugs and stolen goods. Leaving a cop care there does nothing. Here’s a solution, stop making excused for the people that are up to no good down there and ENFORCE THE LAW.
I don’t care about drugs users, I care about available parking. No parking, no sale.
Exactly. For close to 40 years I shopped in the Mission for vegetables, groceries, hardware, and daily errands. Hillary Ronen drove the neighborhood into the ground by tolerating illegal activity under the guise of social justice. I’m no longer willing to put up with the open crime, drug use, and general squalor. I appreciate the Mayor’s attention to the problems and urge Jackie Fielder to get on board. Businesses and residents are suffering.
The bike lane stops people who want to buy things from being able to park. Bicycles don’t buy squat.
If business is down on Valencia why then is it wall to wall bougie restaurants & coffee places with $5 cups of coffee. I went into a baby supplies boutique there that had a baby bassinet that was $600 & baby onesies that were $50, OK? Apparently you weren’t here 25+ years ago when it was all low cost mom & pop Spanish speaking groceries, sundries, bodegas, store front churches & thrift stores interspersed with plenty of vacancies. Get real…..
ML’s implied solution is, as usual, some combination of ‘give out more free resources and housing’ and ‘just leave them alone to do whatever they want to do’.
The blow-by-blow over the period covered is interesting, but ML writers’ editorializing is always a dud.
Where did they give out housing???? All I see being given out are business cards. I’m on a SFHA section 8 waitlist that only 1 in 10 people who applied were selected in a lottery in October of 2023, OK? & we are being told this wait is planned to go on for those at the end of the list until December 2027. I’m disabled from having cancer & have been homeless 16 years in SF because I was a low wage worker who got cancer. I’m from here too btw, before you even start with the “you aren’t even from here” malarkey. I live in a 25 year old vehicle & suffer a lot. I’m not mentally ill nor addicted. I’m simply poor. & being homeless for 16 years now, I know (& have known) dozens of mentally ill or addicted people who can’t get the inpatient treatment they need & want. I know people on waitlists that are months & sometimes over a year long for addiction treatment & for inpatient mental health treatment it’s basically non existent. So, please stop talking about stuff that you know nothing about.
I take issue with you calling these people “vendors”. Theives and drug dealers come to mind after reading your story.
Drove by here last night and the southwest corner of 16th/Mission was so packed that the people in line for the bus were standing in the street.
I have a crazy concept… confiscate items being sold on the street illegally
A pessimistic view of things:
1. Organized crime exploiting the confused politics of the Mission (the ones who ‘didn’t come alone’)
2. City employees happy to conduct their Sisyphean duties while making overtime
3. Lots of resources spent on health and welfare in the most reactive way possible
4. A neighborhood (and city) seemingly stuck in performative limbo, caught between compassion and effectiveness
Start citing the people who buy these stolen goods. Cut off the demand and the problem goes away.
you have to get rid of the Fentanyl dealers south of market first. They are always two to four in a group. The dealers sell to the stolen goods sellers. No drugs, less stealing. You have to go down to Howard now, I’ve seen them at the corner of side streets. You also need that Federal agency which you don’t want to help, but you are reducing drug sales which would make quality of life a little better, one hour at a time. Also, these stolen goods sellers, they get to 16 and 24 and Mission via MUNI. If you did some fare inspection, how many rats would scatter? What are the police doing? Hiding behind their computers and cell phones?
Good article. Would like to see a follow up with the people who were given business cards to see what help they actually received.
The plaza really needs to be resurfaced if it’s gonna keep being used like this. That asphalt “brick” has been power washed so many times the little pits that have formed just hold onto the grime.
Good article. Really loved the detail. And I actually live in The Mission, unlike a lot of the commenters.
From this document: https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/SFPDDN-23-046-20230410.pdf, it looks like SF police can confiscate items if a vendor is selling without a permit. From this article, it doesn’t look like that’s happening. Why not?
once more thing, don’t wear a suit to 16 and 24 and Mission, Mr. Lurie, I’m sure you got some scrubby clothes to blend in. A beanie or baseball cap worn backwards would help.
โ๏ธ What you all are doing is exposing our community to increased police harassment and the presence of the police bus on 16th Street is only exacerbating the situation and harming our people.
I use the 16th/Mission BART station. Shop my groceries nearby, go to S.F.G.H. for appts. I see the going ons. There are 2 worlds colliding. One where ppl are just trying to survive. The other problem being the predators. I’ve bought necessities there. To save a buck, given money, or just p/u veggies left out. I agree tho, order must be maintained. What can be done? 1st. Any felony/repeat offenders, committed there, should equal being trespassed. (Target predators) 2nd. Keep police presence, and until we have Robotic multi timed daily sidewalk water blast cleaning. Use manpower, remember. “Cleaniless is next to Godliness.”
Great journalism
If you’re going to be reporting street vendors, do a curtsey as a reporter, and blur out their faces.
This is important reporting of real sh!t. Thank you.
A week after the Great Lurie Bust Show, the one ounce of “drugs” seized has been upgraded to “narcotics”. And the cops still won’t say, or can’t say, what the actual substance seized is or was? Or did the cops sniff, snort, smoke or eat whatever it was they “seized”