For months, vendors selling everything from shampoo to jeans and pistachios have been congregating during the late afternoon near the northeast 16th Street BART Plaza.
Over the last month, however, the San Francisco Police Department and BART police have been more present.
BART police in an SUV are often there in the afternoon and early evenings, and then an SFPD SUV arrives anywhere between 7 and 9 p.m. The SFPD SUV generally parks with its headlights facing north, where the vendors congregate. Officers said that they stay through the night, unless they get called to move elsewhere.
On Saturday, Day 270 of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s crackdown, the plazas and nearby side streets remained mostly clear. But again, by 5 p.m., drug activity and vending took hold on the east side of Mission Street, as it has nearly every night I’ve checked on it in the last month.
As I’ve witnessed over the past month, the SFPD arrived again on Saturday at 9 p.m. to clear the group of vendors, drug users and others from the area.
Officer Knoble walked with another officer and someone from the Department of Public Works through the crowd of people lined up along the wall of the former Walgreens. They stood by, waiting for people to pick up their belongings.
How long would it take before the place cleared?
Some people just don’t have a place to go, Knoble said.
“This fentanyl, we’ve just never seen anything like it,” he added and pointed to a man at the plaza, his back turned to us, his feet akimbo, his body held up by the low wall around BART.
Three hours ago, Knoble said, the young man was trying to sell some instant coffee. From the looks of him now, he said, he had succeeded. All he’d needed was $5 for some fentanyl.
The operations clearing people from around the northeast corner have been going on for at least a month, according to different officers. The SFPD spokesperson has yet to confirm the start and frequency of the operations, but they’ve seemed pretty consistent.
While far from the success achieved in clearing the west side of Mission Street, the consistency of the night operations is new. Clearing the west side took around 200 days; at Day 100, it was still a mess.
The west side remains clear but, late in the afternoon, the east side becomes a free-for-all of open drug use and illegal vending.
“It can get crazy over there,” said Stephen earlier this week as he looked across to the east side of Mission Street. Stephen works with Ahsing, a city-contracted crew of formerly incarcerated men who, since July, have been patrolling the side streets and the west side of Mission Street. And, indeed, the east side can get crazy.
It’s a major transit hub that is often rough. Mostly, I experience it as a reporter, circulating without having to stay still. On one recent evening in late November, however, I was there at 6:30 p.m. to catch the 49-Van Ness to McAllister Street. If you’re waiting for the bus, you generally don’t wander.
That night while I waited, I shared the shelter with four other people. Two smoked from a glass pipe; the other two were bent over. It was not a place anyone with a child — and there are plenty of families who live nearby — would spend any time.
When I got on the bus only a few others boarded. Those sitting at the shelter stayed.
Saturday, Dec. 6
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:03 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:03 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:05 p.m. east side of Mission Street near the northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:04 p.m. As usual nowadays it is all clear on the west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 9:07 p.m. northeast plaza, Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 9:14 p.m. northeast plaza, Adam and Captain Knoble talk about the help that is available through the city. Photo by Lydia Chávez
Scenes from November and earlier this month
11/22/ 6:49 p.m. northeast plaza Photo by Lydia Chávez 
11/22/25 6:56 p.m. Muni Stop northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
11/24/25 6:37p.m. Muni Stop northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
11/24/25, 9:33 p.m. northeast plaza, 
11/29/25 8:25 p.m. Muni Stop northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/03/25 5:19 p.m. Muni Stop northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 4:52 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 12/6/25, 7:03 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:03 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:03 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:04 p.m. As usual nowadays it is all clear on the west side of Mission Street. Photo by Lydia Chávez 12/6/25, 7:05 p.m. east side of Mission Street near the northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:05 p.m. east side of Mission Street near the northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez 
12/6/25, 7:05 p.m. northeast plaza. Photo by Lydia Chávez
Thanks for staying with this (disaster) story.
I sure would like to hear from the people who stopped anything (housing) from being built on the Walgreens parcel. How has this kept the neighborhood “culture” alive. How has this protected the neighborhoods traditional occupants?
Next time someone fights any kind of market rate housing in the Mission I hope they first answer for the results we now see at 16th and Mission.
Yeah now they’re moving into other neighbors on Bush between jones and Taylor. I called the cops non stop for drug use selling drugs and even staking out cars . Now the drug users are being the look outs for the dealers to break into cars. I cannot even leave my apt after 8 especially Sundays !! I call the cops non stop since I have a child my window not to far from the street !!! They have not done one patrol on this block since September!!! No matter if they’re attempting to break in to cars or into my apartment building waiting for me to leave and trying to grab the door I have to slam it shut . They don’t care I call the cops they’re literally blocking the front door and you can’t get out . Sfpd hasn’t been doing nothing for other communities. Early in the morning I’m afraid to let my son 1 1/2yr old to walk because I don’t know if they’re drugs or used needles or pipes on the sidewalks . I pay a higher rent sometime even struggling with money to avoid this activity but at this point I’m piss off at the sfpd … Refuses to do patrols especially after 8 pm if they just did one once a hour you would see the difference. the fact I see so many freaking parked cop cars in North Beach during these hours if I’m lucky enough to be out pass 8 and also in the tenderloin sfpd I’m beyond pissed . I’m asking a lawyer to look at my lease to see if I can break it . And then again leave this city that only care about tourists not it families or residents that live here .. really need to step up your game cause these dealers and users now know you never never never respond to calls about them
SFPD is a joke. Laziest cops anywhere.
I’m dying to see what happens when the site starts construction (was hoping that would start in December). Where will all those people go then?
The SFPD and the DPW have done a great job the last few months at 16th & Mission.
Screw 16th and Mission!! What about 24th and Mission? Which has gotten so bad, that you can’t even stand at the Bus Stop, the one across the street from McDonalds,and I even had to help direct a gentleman in a wheel chair navigate around, the vendors and their ill gotten gains. Yes, they do put police there, but not on weekends, but the vendors, wait until they leave, and come back.
The vendors and drug users are generally harmless. Instead of just sitting around there accomplishing nothing, the SFPD should focus on responding to calls about actual crimes, and then following up with real investigations into car and bicycle thefts, robberies, burglaries, etc.
At bare minimum they are preventing people from using a major transit hub. BART should get fully reimbursed annually for the operation of the station from the homeless and drug nonprofit funds since the community can’t use it.
“drug users are generally harmless’
While I was conversing with a cop three feet away from me, a bent-over fentanyl addict didn’t like me doing that so he deliberately crashed into me as he walked past me. He certainly wasn’t and isn’t “harmless.”
Clueless.
@Starchild, they are not harmless if you are disabled, and need to navigage around them and their ill gotten gains. And what about the Asian & Brown merchants, who own stores in that area,where a lot of the stolen,merchandise comes from, did you ever think about how they’re impacted. What will happen, the merchants, will leave and then their will be a food desert there and you,{ it rumored that Walgreens is thinking about leaving,}, and other liberals will whine about it. Oh! Wait they should get a Kitty!
Walgreens?!? Why should we care about keeping an organization that contributed waaaaay more to the opioid crisis than any street dealer ever has?
Shoutout to Ahsing aka the whitewhests. From what I’ve seen, they’ve done a great job clearing the west side of Mission and keeping it that way. We need more of that.
My hero’s, my body guards. Keeping focused . Life long mission . SFM
..unless the “actual crimes” lead to investigations into bicycle theft, robberies, burglaries that maybe crack down on the harmless vendors and drug users. You can say the quiet part out loud.
I can hardly wait until the disablity right folks get involved, since it’s impossible, for,not just a blind person, but anyone in a wheel chair, to navigate both areas. And don’t get me started on the noise.
Bicycle thefts lol. Where did you say you were from?