San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu is seeking to shutter multiple Tenderloin businesses for allegedly operating as illegal gambling dens and selling drugs while fronting as discount stores or smoke shops.
“The businesses housed substantial illegal gambling operations, facilitated criminal and drug activity in the neighborhood, and, in some cases, illegally sold controlled substances,” read a statement from the City Attorney’s Office today. The office filed three separate lawsuits.
Chiu called the stores the “Wild West,” claiming one even had meth for sale in a display case. He said the businesses had become “magnets” for illegal activity. The lawsuits seek to shut the four named businesses for a year: Ed’s Market on Turk Street, Ez Dollar on Jones Street, and Family Corner Discounts and US Smoke Shop, both on Ellis Street.
The owners of the stores could not be immediately reached for comment, but a clerk from US Smoke Shop said that he just started working there a week ago and was unaware of gambling or fencing.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know nothing about that at the moment,” he said.
“Since the US Smoke Shop opened, criminal and nuisance activity have increased in the area, necessitating police intervention and adversely affecting the surrounding neighborhood,” the lawsuit read. “The neighborhood has experienced a rising number of thefts, assaults, drug-related offenses and arrests of [the store’s] customers wanted on outstanding warrants.”
Oftentimes, gambling is apparent from the street. For the stores named in the city attorney’s lawsuits, officers often walked in and could immediately see gambling, or went undercover to play games and cash out themselves.
Though gambling has long been a part of life in the Tenderloin, police have in recent months cracked down. In January, officers raided three of the four stores named in the suits: Family Corner Discounts, US Smoke Shop, and Ez Dollar. They arrested four men and cited 11 more for misdemeanors.
Police seized 17 illegal gambling machines from the three stores, more than $30,000, and drugs spanning from marijuana to methamphetamine. They also seized items believed to be related to organized retail theft, like items with Walgreens and Target price stickers on them for sale.
One officer involved in the raid on the 400 block of Ellis Street said, during a recent community meeting, that officers collected nearly 1,000 meth pipes, and some 500 crack pipes during that raid.
Ed’s Market was raided last month and 11 gambling machines were seized.
Last week I watched a full blown SWAT raid go down at another gambling spot at Bryant and Harriet. Pretty wild… full tactical gear, roof gunner, full block shut down by SFPD in advance, etc.
All I know is that the corner store wasn’t as corrupt as it stated here in this article. There weren’t drugs, guns, or stolen goods in that store at all. Maybe people that did drugs came inside, but that’s everywhere in the TL. IT’S A SHAME THAT people can’t handle a little fun in this neighborhood. It seems to me that the other spots are focused on greed. and the people working in those spots that had those machines were rude and were only worried about money, money, money… But the corner store was actually a good place for folks to come in, make a little money, and have a nice time…
Of course some of the patrons that came in were seedy and got angry when other people were doing well… But overall, that place wasn’t as corrupt as the rest of them. I live near the place and really enjoyed going in there to see my friends and shop and win a little money… Nothing wrong with that.
Someone has to explain to me why this was not done before..shut them down for one year? really? shut them down for ever, with fines and jail times for the owners and ban them forever operating a business in the city again..Disrupt, disrupt, disrupt..the neighbors will love you. Scumbags can pack their bags and go back to live in the basement of their parents in adjacent states and back east. Time to get on the Greyhound bus, the party is over.
Chiu’s been ‘so busy’ with gambling dens he didn’t have time to investigate corruption in plain sight, including his own violations of the Sunshine ordinance.
Or anything else.