No rides, no-knock, and stuff to do

Good afternoon!

Lots of waiting: that’s what Uber and Lyft drivers are doing, as the rideshare industry changes. Lyft and Uber are no longer flush with cash, able to offer drivers regular bonuses. San Francisco isn’t teeming with tech and office workers who call for frequent, lucrative rides. Downtown fares now, one immigrant driver told Mission Local, are too small, and “drivers may even lose money taking them.” That means drivers spend more time waiting in airport lots than anywhere else.

To queue up to get rides from the airport, a driver jockeys for one of the coveted 180 spots inside two designated rideshare parking lots. Most of the time the lots are full, and some drivers keep circling SFO, burning gas as they wait for a space to clear. Those in the lots can wait for many hours until their place in line comes up, hoping they’ll snag a big fare beyond the $30 SFO average. “To be honest,” said one Afghan driver, “I’m tired. When you are not getting enough money, you are tired.”

After waiting more than 25 years, The San Francisco Police Commission updated the city’s longstanding search warrant policy, allowing police officers to execute a search warrant without knocking first if there is reason to believe there’s an “imminent threat of physical violence” to the officers or the public. No-knock warrants would be served by the tactical unit and require an assistant chief and a judge to sign off––but the new policy also lets officers make an on-the-scene judgment not to knock if they believe such a threat exists. A year and a half of negotiations added “critical safeguards” to the new policy, including limits on warrants that would let police track all mobile devices in an area, and limits on searches where only youth are present.

Deputy public defender Brian Cox said that despite improvements, the process for revising the policy lacked community input, and suggested that policy revisions were led by the SFPD. “The policy is not perfect,” said commissioner Kevin Benedicto, who oversaw negotiations, “and indeed, not every stakeholder got what they wanted.” Nonetheless, Benedicto said he was pleased with the outcome, and commissioners passed the new rules unanimously without debate.

This weekend, take a look at some of the stuff to do around the neighborhood: a drag show, a cleanup party, a terrific art show, and a night of games. And enjoy driving to events while you can: new parking regulations are being proposed for the northeast Mission that would regulate hundreds of parking spaces for the first time.

More soon,

Sara