More than a year into the crackdown on San Francisco’s illegal drug markets, users in the Tenderloin say they’re still scoring hard drugs on Market Street between Sixth and Seventh, though it’s not quite as easy.
Locals say there have been minimal improvements in the past year at the problem-plagued intersections, which continue to draw crowds. Yet police have hailed the crackdown as a success, pointing to numbers of arrests and kilos of drugs seized.
According to SFPD data, police seized 242.2 kilograms of illegal narcotics, including 110.6 kilograms of fentanyl and 58.6 kilograms of methamphetamine, between May 29, 2023, and Aug. 14, 2024. They arrested 1,224 dealers and 1,526 drug users during that period.
Of the 2,636 people booked into jail as of July 31 as part of the crackdown, only 14 were interested in treatment, a San Francisco Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said.
“Party activity is still extensive in the Civic Center and pushes up the hill especially at night,” the Tenderloin Business Coalition said Monday in an email newsletter. “Progress is difficult to define.”
Users say they’ve gotten more desperate since police started arresting people as part of the multi-agency law enforcement effort to disrupt open-air markets.
“I believe it’s worse now,” said Tony Smith, 29, clutching a burnt scrap of foil. “People are desperate to get their drugs. They need them every couple of hours.”
Joseph Brock, 36, said arresting users and dealers isn’t fixing the problem of open-air drug use. Brock said the city should establish a designated area for drug use, pointing to the controversial Tenderloin Center, a safe consumption site that was shut down in December 2022.
“They’re just pushing the problem around,” Brock said, clutching a meth pipe. “It’s not gonna leave. The problem is the drug use in the public eye.”
Research from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that crackdown operations can reduce crime without displacing it to other neighborhoods in the short term, but the illegal activity can eventually migrate elsewhere.
Karim Ajour, who rents a two-bedroom condo on Market between Sixth and Seventh streets, said he hasn’t noticed a change in the community.
“It’s the same: always dirty,” Ajour said.
Sitting next to Ajour’s apartment building, Jake Martin, a 31-year-old who said he frequents the area, told The Standard he hasn’t seen any difference in the number of people gathering at night since he arrived in San Francisco a little over a year ago.
“It’s kinda the same,” Martin said. “Food, candy, hygiene stuff, clothes, jewelry, electronics, random stuff.”
Justin Alicea said the scene outside his apartment building on McAllister Street has improved since a fence went up in March, but there are typically 30 to 40 people on the sidewalk at a given time. Whenever police arrive at a crowded corner, the group moves to another, he said.
“The later it is, the busier it gets — like, 1 a.m. is really busy,” Alicea said.
The Standard visited Market Street between Sixth and Eighth and along Charles J. Brenham Place twice last week.
Between 10:15 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. on Aug. 19, a reporter saw approximately 350 people and one police vehicle on Market Street.
Around the same time on Aug. 21, after The Standard contacted police for comment, a reporter saw squad cars drive by nine times and counted 210 people hanging out on the problematic corners. A reporter witnessed 11 incidents of public drug use.
When asked about the crowds, SFPD spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky said people are not arrested for gathering in outdoor public spaces.
“That would be a violation of their constitutional rights,” he said, adding that SFPD has made “great progress” since May 2023 in going after drug dealers, noting the arrest and seizure data.
“We’re seeing positive results,” Sernoffsky said.
The mayor’s office pointed to the arrests and drug seizures by SFPD as proof that the city’s crackdown on drug dealers is working.
Smith, who said he smokes fentanyl, acknowledged that the police presence has some positive impacts: The cops can help prevent overdose deaths in the areas they patrol. But, he said, arresting people without helping them get off addictive drugs is unproductive and “insane.”
“If you don’t get them by the next night, you’re fucked,” he said of the constant hunt for a fix. “You’re dope sick.”