To address drug activity and loitering on Tenderloin streets, San Francisco city officials have taken a new approach to clearing the block: Prohibiting parking at different hotspots for a few days at a time.
Last week, city crews descended on three blocks of Leavenworth Street and power washed the sidewalks, towed cars, and told people to move along. In the coming days, the same will happen on Ellis Street between Hyde to Polk. Cars will be given 72 hours’ notice to move for a street clearance between Aug. 4 and 6. If they don’t, they’ll be towed.
“We’re trying to clean the streets, clean the sidewalks,” said newly promoted Tenderloin Station Captain Matt Sullivan, who joined and took over the district station earlier this month.
The street closures for parked cars will focus on different streets in the Tenderloin over the next month, Sullivan added, with a focus on areas with garbage or debris buildup.
Sullivan said the new effort is being led by the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a task force composed of several city agencies to target drug markets in areas like the Tenderloin, SoMa, and the Mission. The Department of Public Works powerwashes the blocks, and the Municipal Transportation Agency will tow cars.
Sullivan discussed the new strategy with residents at Tuesday’s monthly district station meeting. Although frustrated with the lack of parking, residents said it made a difference.
“The people hide behind the cars. They evade the police, because they drive by and they can’t see them,” said resident Aaron Thomas in an interview a few days after the Leavenworth ban.
He said he found the difficulty of parking for a few days last week worth the benefit. “When the cars are gone, the drug dealers are gone.”
The only people who remained, Thomas added, were a few drug users, “the people that were just really, truly struggling.”
The street clearing, Sullivan said, was not intended to facilitate arrests, but rather to keep the area clean for residents. By that measure, he felt the first round of cleared blocks last week had been a success.
“It looked like people were happy,” Sullivan said of Leavenworth in the days that parking was banned. “It didn’t look like people were out there dealing drugs, loitering, drinking.”
At the community meeting on Tuesday, one resident said he was concerned that the street cleaning and temporary parking bans were a waste of resources if systemic issues aren’t also addressed.
“Every day, I say ‘thank you, guys, for cleaning up the city a little bit,’” the man said. “But do you guys have any plans to try to actually combat the issue of them going right back after you guys have left?”
There would probably be a “learning curve” in implementing the new program, Sullivan responded. But he hoped to bring in ambassadors to maintain any progress in street cleanliness.
Esan Looper, Director of Community Organizing at the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, told those assembled at the meeting that he agreed “1,000 percent” that the new strategy has some problem-solving ahead. Looper that he was available to discuss how to minimize the impacts on residents’ ability to park.
More than anything, Looper added, he was excited at its potential to disrupt a pattern of people doing drugs in or behind cars.
“I could not believe the difference it made,” he said.
It’s like when the city removed most of the tenderloin’s trash cans so the addicts can’t rummage through them anymore: wrong solution to a mischaracterized problem.
I spend a lot of time in the TL – in places cars are parked on the street for DAYS at a time without even basic parking meter enforcement, especially in the back alleys. And it’s blatantly obvious which cars are being used for dealing drugs. Just enforce the law. Bring back so-called pre-textual police stops, prosecute the dealers, deport the ones here illegally, tow the abandoned cars… It isn’t rocket science, just anathema to progressive ideology.
sman I doubt that you live in the Tenderloin like I do; and no, it is not blatantly obvious which cars are being used since it’s different cars every day. If you did you would understand that drug dealers keep their stash of drugs and money on the wheel well of the tire. That way they don’t have the drugs on them when the police come. I can see this from my apartment where I live. Get rid of the cars and the trees too that are magnets for crime, dog pee and garbage
Laughable.
As someone who exists in the Tenderloin, I am not sure towing cars makes much of a difference though frequent sidewalk cleaning of dog feces makes walking around much more pleasant.
Wow, tough one for progressives. Should they support this or not? They love criminals and junkies, but they hate cars.
See, that’s the great thing about these progressives you’ve made up entirely in your head. Since they’re a total invention of yours, you can change their positions to suit your whims.
this “progressives” term seems to live rent-free in the head of republicans (or as we call them here in SF “moderates”). A progressive says, “we want “due process” for all”, and republicans say they love criminals. A progressive says, “we want a cleaner environment and safer streets for people”, and republicans say they hate cars.
Cool, more people will be pushed into the Mission. Is there someone with an overarching strategy here or is it every captain/district for itself?
Mitchell, you by chance have any solutions to put forward or, is it only complaints? The City, and Oakland used to be beautiful but now are DISASTER zones thanks to Liberals and their social engineering and other irresponsible progressive policies. I grew up here in Richmond and have been in CA all of my life and have seen1st hand how Democrats have destroyed CA. So, in taking my own advice I say, the solution is to let them do what they’re doing and the issues YOU raise you can help address THOSE at the city level.
How is this in any real way “a solution” when the police aren’t actively arresting the drug dealers in action daily? You can remove the cars, you can remove trash cans, you can remove head shops and corner bodegas and muni benches, you can remove everything that makes SF a city and there will STILL be fent addicts getting their fix. This is laughable garbage from the same idiots who think painting colorful lanes on streets makes buses go faster and reduces pedestrian deaths. These people are the problem, and the solution is to break the back of the SF City Family of non-profit busybody BS that goes around PR’ing itself on my dime. Enough. I thought Lurie was going to have common sense, I was very wrong. He’s just another Breed. It’s all a show and he is unwilling to get to the source of the problem – LAZY SF PD NOT DOING THE JOB THEY GET PAID QUITE WELL TO DO!
I live in the Mission and most of the drug deals/use seem to be pretty out in the open, but I don’t have a problem with TRYING something like a car ban to see if it works. I think what might be more effective are foot patrols. There are sometimes three cop cars at the 16th street BART station and people doing drugs a half a block away.
Thanks for reporting
Why cannot the meter persons yet even adequately patrol the tenderloin and lower polk street area and alleyways
RVs, cars parked being used as drug dens for days ?
Even if you call the car sits for weeks before they will consider towing it?
Cannot the meter persons begin to monitor and help patrol the sidewalks as well?
See them ticketing a car next to an open drug party that is blocking the sidewalk .
They do not nothing
This city has a bunch of lazy employees on the grift who do nothing .
No accountability
Fire them and stop the hand outs to people warming their chairs and the druggies .
Wasting taxpayer money .
Really tired of the grift in this town
Let them whine.
Evidence is proof they are not able to do their job
Regardless of the merits, it seems there is a disturbing trend among SF progressives (including myself) that cars are to us what Hillary Clinton is to MAGA. Cars are always the go-to bogeymen of all the City’s woes.
Is demonizing the automobile always the best solution or is it just the easiest?
Cars don’t do or sell fentanyl…. Heads up
The SFPD sweeps are a lot like having a policeman masturbate in front of a hopeful residence. When they are done they are satisfied but nothing but disappointment from the locals.
this: “The people hide behind the cars. They evade the police, because they drive by and they can’t see them,”
Ever been at a restaurant and the waitress continues to ignore you, even though they’ve walked by you like 10 times, somehow, they don’t ever make eye contact? It’s because they’ve got better things to do at the time.
So, these guys on the street, are they *really* evading the police? Really? Or is SFPD more like a waiter who doesn’t have time for dealing with some unwashed dealer who may or may not have drugs/cash and may or may not be armed and may or may not cause problems, and will DEFINATELY cause them to be doing paperwork for the rest of the day.
I just hope when somebody, if the police enforcers take some action , especialy this tugs are dealing drugs on Ellis st between Leavenworth, and jones , behind the parcked cars on plain shigt every day.
This is just another way for the great leaders of sf to steal people’s cars and get more money.. why do they not get in trouble for this fraud this whole city has with the car issues
As a car driver, I’m pretty insulted that the city thinks I’m an idle drug user or drug dealer.
He literally thinks weekly street sweep stops drug dealing. He’s not being sarcastic.
If/when they remove all the oxygen from the TL, still, there will be drug dealing.
People can believe anything Peter Pan tells them, but that doesn’t mean they can fly.
Breed and Lee had the same things going on with exactly the same fanfare.
And that was 10 years ago. You pushed the same problem around in tight circles.
But sure, street sweeping, that oughta do it! Smart stuff, SF.
Ah, yes. San Francisco radicals succeed again, cleverly finding a way to make cars the villain in all evil. 🙄
This is such a farce. All it takes to hide from SFPD is duck behind a car? Are they THAT lazy? The Tenderloin has the lowest rate of car ownership outside of maybe Chinatown, and the highest rate of traffic violence. But when residents as the City for safety improvements, they get nothing. It’s Capp Street all over again: traffic and parking over all unless the cops want something.
The only way to get drug problems off the street is to arrest the drug addicts rest them for two or three days let them go take their drugs take their money make them suffer that’s the only way you’re going to get rid of these assholes
The only way to get drug problems off the street is to arrest the drug addicts rest them for two or three days let them go take their drugs take their money make them suffer that’s the only way you’re going to get rid of these zombies.
Get rid of the progressive idiots that created this problem they can’t survive without corruption so they create corruption through chaos that’s why this is, without the messed up chaos the progressive party can’t survive because corruption is it’s home. There’s full-blown corruption still in the administration in San Francisco’s government and if you really looked you would see it just as bad as it always been and no one’s doing nothing about it cuz they’re a bunch of gay child molesters.
✑ I am shocked, shocked that this publication didn’t follow the established conventions and sacred traditions of all the other local media in these parts and emblazon a tabloid WAR ON CARS headline over this story. Now the comments section will lack our minimum daily dose of insights about how I totally seen this guy one time crossing the street while looking at his phone and nobody should blame motorists for anything.
^ The war on cars continues..
Zzzz, poor bicyclist mafia media manager has to get whiny gripes about cars in…
Must be a Wednesday during “work” hours, quotes required.
He’s very annoying. And in many corners of the internet whining with others.
All transplant SF cyclists are whiners. The locals have managed for decades without their BS.