Open Letter to Mayor: Please Help Tenderloin Residents and Businesses
Mayor Breed, Police Chief Scott, Police Commissioner and Small Business Commissioners:
Stop Crime SF and its 1,600 members ask for a comprehensive effort to reduce crime and improve the quality of life in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market Street areas.
Families living in the Tenderloin are under assault and need help. Everyone can see the constant presence of open-air drug dealing and the scale of human suffering from deadly fentanyl-fueled overdoses on sidewalks littered with needles and feces. By ceding control to the drug dealers, we have created an unbearable situation for the residents and children who have no choice but to navigate the Tenderloin's treacherous streets.
This is a problem that also impacts the city as a whole and residents in every district. It jeopardizes San Francisco's economy and tax base by scaring away visitors to the area's theater district. Shows are moving start times earlier because of the mayhem in the neighborhood, which has a ripple effect on local restaurant owners and workers who depend on theatergoers spending a full evening downtown.
Randy Shaw has written extensively about the problems in the Tenderloin and the solutions that need to be pursued. For one, the city could start by protecting vulnerable Tenderloin/Mid-Market residents and businesses (including theaters) from drug dealing and violence. An expansion of Urban Alchemy might help reduce the quantity of filth and needles when theaters open, as would perhaps a dedicated SFPD task force for criminal investigations in the area. But mostly any solution requires a greater police presence, including additional foot patrols and motorcycle and bicycle deployments.
The mayor, police chief, police commissioners, and small business commissioners have no control over the decisions of the district attorney’s office to not prosecute a crime or release a repeat offender. But it would be helpful if you publicly called out instances where this occurs unjustly.
Stop Crime SF supports what Randy Shaw proposes and we want to work with city officials to ensure families of the Tenderloin can live safely in a vibrant neighborhood where theaters and merchants also thrive.
Sincerely,
Frank Noto
President, Stop Crime SF