Two months ago, San Francisco police drove a bus-sized “mobile command unit” onto one of the 16th Street BART plazas. They’ve been regularly patrolling the corner and its alleyways ever since.
And every day for the past two months, Mission Local has filed dispatches on the plaza and the streets around it, to document what Mayor Daniel Lurie’spromise — to rid the 16th Street area of drug dealing, drug using, and the fencing of stolen goods — looks like in action.
While locals say the BART plazas have remained consistently cleaner, the ebbs and flows of one alley tell a different story.
Residents, business owners, and even bus drivers have said that the migration of people using drugs on Wiese Street follows no discernible pattern. “It’s hell every single hour of every single day,” said one.
Mornings are generally emptier, and afternoons busier. Sometimes, police drive vans down the alley and move everyone along, before they amble back.
Two months of photos show that the street may be clear one hour or day, and filled with people another. Here are a few:
8 a.m.
3/21/25 8:09 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
3/22/25 7:59 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
9 a.m.
5/1/25 9:30 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Gustavo Hernandez.
3/16/25 9:09 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
10 a.m.
5/05/25 10:13 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Gustavo Hernandez.
3/15/25 10:28 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
11 a.m.
3/19/25 11 a.m. Wiese Street.
4/16/25 11:30 a.m. Wiese Street.
4/26/25 11:43 a.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Xueer Lu.
Noon
5/07/25 12 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Gustavo Hernandez.
4/27/25 12:42 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Xueer Lu.
3/19/25 12:30 p.m. Wiese Street.
1 p.m.
5/02/25 1:40 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Gustavo Hernandez.
3/23/25 1 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Mark Rabine.
2 p.m.
4/20/25 2 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Abigail Vân Neely.
5/3/25 2 p.m. Weise Street. Photo by Abigail Vân Neely.
3 p.m.
4/19/25 3:15 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Abigail Vân Neely.
3/25/25 3:30 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Marc Salomon.
3/18/25 3:30 p.m. Wiese Street.
4 p.m.
4/19/25 4 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Abigail Vân Neely.
3/24/25 4 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Marc Salomon.
3/19/25 4 p.m. Wiese Street. Photo by Michael Brown.
Abigail is a staff reporter at Mission Local covering criminal justice and public health. She got her bachelor's and master's from Stanford University and has received awards for investigative reporting and public service journalism.
Abigail now lives in San Francisco with her cat, Sally Carrera, but she'll always be a New Yorker. (Yes, the shelter named the cat after the Porsche from the animated movie Cars.)
This series has been quite a ride, and you guys must be getting PTSD.
Who knew that not only does simply slapping on a heavy dose* ** of law and order not “fix” social problems caused by the unilateral, top-down class war that must not be acknowledged, but that that heavy dose is just more of the same ol’ class war by different means? More SFPD overtime, please: there’s some undesirables on the street, and the fall-out from late-stage, neo-liberal, self-devouring capitalism must be hidden!
*”dose” used ironically, as the ruling class is as addicted to a militarized po-po as our street zombies are to fetty;
**systemic crises wrought by domestic economic and foreign imperial policies that transfer wealth from the workers who create it to the swells who hoard it can’t be quick-fixed with prosaic local gummint measures.
The police presence is mostly theater. I’ve seen cops witness people use drugs in plain sight and provide no enforcement.
Why we choose to let people (literally) shit on our beautiful city is crazy to me.
This is not a matter of criminalizing homelessness. But if you use drugs in public spaces, or even less controversially, litter on public spaces, there should be consequences.
Today sadly the enforcement of misdemeanor laws we have on the books (public intoxication, littering, public defecation) is a joke.
I understand the complexities of fining people without money or even identification, and yes, there should be more trash receptacles, these are basic problems I expect a city official to be able to solve. Why we make holding people accountable for breaking laws and Odyssean effort is beyond me…
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I’d love to see the estimated cost of this exercise. That would really allow us to decide whether or not this was worth it.
This series has been quite a ride, and you guys must be getting PTSD.
Who knew that not only does simply slapping on a heavy dose* ** of law and order not “fix” social problems caused by the unilateral, top-down class war that must not be acknowledged, but that that heavy dose is just more of the same ol’ class war by different means? More SFPD overtime, please: there’s some undesirables on the street, and the fall-out from late-stage, neo-liberal, self-devouring capitalism must be hidden!
*”dose” used ironically, as the ruling class is as addicted to a militarized po-po as our street zombies are to fetty;
**systemic crises wrought by domestic economic and foreign imperial policies that transfer wealth from the workers who create it to the swells who hoard it can’t be quick-fixed with prosaic local gummint measures.
Why don’t you do the clean up?
I’d venture to guess that a lot of folks were unaware that the drug-addled could persevere a police crackdown.
The question is: who folds first? Will the pig rig vacate, or will ML cease daily coverage? Because the addicts will not fold.
Got it, so we should just cede the neighborhood and the city to out of town junkies to do as they please.
The police presence is mostly theater. I’ve seen cops witness people use drugs in plain sight and provide no enforcement.
Why we choose to let people (literally) shit on our beautiful city is crazy to me.
This is not a matter of criminalizing homelessness. But if you use drugs in public spaces, or even less controversially, litter on public spaces, there should be consequences.
Today sadly the enforcement of misdemeanor laws we have on the books (public intoxication, littering, public defecation) is a joke.
I understand the complexities of fining people without money or even identification, and yes, there should be more trash receptacles, these are basic problems I expect a city official to be able to solve. Why we make holding people accountable for breaking laws and Odyssean effort is beyond me…
The cleanups have rhyme and reason. The actions of the junkies who break laws and trash the neighborhood with no consequences don’t.