The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved legislation Tuesday to institute a curfew on certain businesses in the city’s latest attempt at preventing drug use in the crime-ridden Tenderloin district.
The new curfew rules would prevent businesses in the Tenderloin selling “prepackaged food or tobacco products from operating” between midnight and 5 a.m. Businesses that sell liquor will close later, between 2 and 5 a.m., according to a press release from Tuesday.
“The drug markets happening at night in this neighborhood are unacceptable and must be met with increased law enforcement and new strategies, but this must be done in partnership with community, which we are doing,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR BREED PROPOSES BUSINESS CURFEW TO REDUCE RAMPANT DRUG USE, CRIME
“This is a good example of turning community feedback into real action because everyone in the Tenderloin deserves safe streets not just during the day, but also at night,” Breed said.
The legislation is designed as a two-year pilot program, according to the press release, and will be enforced by fines from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and investigation from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).
“This legislation will assist our hard-working officers in their work to hold drug dealers accountable and make the streets safer for everyone,” SFPD Chief Bill Scott said.
Some members of the police and local community in San Francisco have opposed the measure, however.
“Our challenges still occur at night,” Assistant Chief David Lazar told KTVU in an interview when the curfew measure was first proposed in April. “Crowds of people that are there selling stolen property, selling narcotics. We have drug users all over. And the problem is that when you have businesses that are open, like liquor stores and smoke shops, it just attracts more people.”
Multiple businesses in the Tenderloin district have complained about the homelessness and drug crisis in recent years, with entrepreneurs saying that running a restaurant, café or another type of small business in the city has become increasingly difficult.
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A study recently found that San Francisco was the “worst run” city in the U.S. according to a report by WalletHub.
The study measured the “effectiveness of local leadership” by comparing the quality of city services matched against the city’s total budget to determine its operating efficiency.
Breed’s office defended the mayor’s policy actions to reduce drug use in San Francisco in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Mayor Breed has taken aggressive steps to shut down open-air drug markets and that is why she established the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) in May 2023, activating resources across the City to dismantle the illegal drug markets in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods,” the mayor’s office wrote in a statement.
“Since May 28, 2023, SFPD has seized over 225 kilos of narcotics and made more than 3,400 arrests related to drug activity in these neighborhoods, including more than 1,400 drug dealers and over 1,500 drug users arrested. For fentanyl seizures, over 77 million lethal doses have been seized since the start of DMACC,” the statement continued.
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
Original article source: San Francisco orders curfew on some shops to stop late-night crime in Tenderloin district
