As lawlessness in San Francisco shows no signs of abating, local businesses are reeling from the consequences.
A recent survey from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association reveals that a staggering 97% of 74 restaurants surveyed in the city have fallen victim to graffiti or property crime in the last month.
While the liberal mayor pours money into temporary relief, the persistent problems of crime, homelessness, and open-air drug use are driving businesses and consumers away.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city has generously dished out $1 million in grants for vandalism relief since 2021.
This initiative has enabled almost 800 businesses to receive $1,000 or $2,000 grants to mend the damage caused by graffiti, shattered windows, and other forms of destruction.
Despite this, San Francisco’s 311 call center has noted an alarming 10,000 reports of graffiti on commercial properties and walkways in the past six months alone.
Recognizing the severity of the situation, the San Francisco Police Department has taken the unprecedented step of assigning a dedicated officer to tackle the graffiti menace.
However, business owners are struggling, with repair bills rapidly mounting.
Supreme Pizza’s owner, Leandro Jayme, detailed his ordeal to ABC7, explaining that vandals targeted his establishment in the Mission District using acid, causing irreparable damage.
“This is acid so you can’t just remove it. They have to replace the glass,” he shared, lamenting the $300 cost for replacing even a small pane.
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Some local eateries, like Shuggie’s, have thrown in the towel, overwhelmed by the seemingly unending cycle of graffiti vandalism.
Despite having received a city grant, they’ve halted efforts to scrub away the constant barrage of defacement.
But graffiti isn’t the only woe befalling the once-vibrant city.
Shoplifting runs rampant. Traditional measures seem ineffectual, prompting businesses to adopt extreme security countermeasures.
While Safeway has resorted to implementing exit gates demanding customers to verify their purchases, a Walgreens has gone as far as chaining its freezers due to shoplifters targeting the store an astonishing 15 to 20 times daily, as one employee revealed.
The troubling increase in shoplifting, some argue, can be attributed to Proposition 47—a 2014 legislation, supported by voters, which reduced the theft of goods valued under $950 to a mere misdemeanor.
This leniency often results in these thefts going uninvestigated.
A 2022 poll revealed that a significant majority of Californians favor revising Prop 47 to reintroduce penalties for specific thefts.
While there’s a sliver of hope with overall crime seeing a minor dip in San Francisco, particular violent crimes continue their upward trajectory. Murder rates have risen by 3%, robberies by 16%, and car thefts by 11%.
The city’s core issues go beyond just crime.
The unchecked drug crisis is evident, with a record 84 accidental drug overdose fatalities in August alone. As of now, the total for the year stands at a tragic 563.
Homelessness, which has spiraled upwards by 35% since 2019, has become an additional blight.
An estimated 38,000 individuals find themselves without a roof in the Bay Area nightly.
Such formidable challenges have driven businesses out of San Francisco’s downtown.
Major retailers, including Westfield, AT&T, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and two hotels, have all recently abandoned their downtown locations.
This exodus underscores the urgent need for genuine solutions rather than short-term fixes, a sentiment deeply felt among the city’s concerned residents.
