Drug dealers, users, and illegal vendors made a familiar pilgrimage Wednesday night from Mission Street to Market. It was 11 p.m., and a brawl on the corner of Sixth and Jessie streets, a narcotics hot spot, had attracted a heavy police presence, shifting the infamous night market north.
Some members of the cavalcade folded their stolen wares into tarps, slinging them over their shoulders or cradling them. Others dragged suitcases. None had to travel far to continue their night, just a block down, away from the cops.
In just the first three weeks of the year, police made 110 drug arrests on the three-block stretch of Sixth between Market and Folsom streets — more than anywhere else in the city. But despite a year-and-a-half-long crackdown, a flurry of tough-on-crime legislation, and a fresh crop of politicians, this stretch of streets has only seen an increase in drug activity and crime, according to nearby businesses.
Cops have made 218 arrests in total along the Sixth Street corridor over the last month. Beyond drug arrests, others include 36 individuals for outstanding warrants, 18 for assault, and 40 additional for other crimes.
“Same shit, different toilet,” said a man named J.T. who was selling stolen goods on the sidewalk. “It doesn’t change it much for me. What I’m doing was already a felony.”
Before long, the cop cars on Sixth raced away to another call. Ten minutes later, another fight broke out. By midnight, the flock had drifted back to the corner on Jessie.
Sarah Casey, a manager at the Rumpus Room who has lived and worked on Sixth for a decade, said the street crowd — which has always existed in some capacity — has become more unruly in the last six months after many people were swept out of the Tenderloin.
Casey said she doesn’t necessarily feel unsafe but is hesitant to recommend nearby bars to out-of-town customers. She expressed hopes that Mayor Daniel Lurie will propose solutions that don’t just move people to another block.
“Before this last year, it felt like the crowd was made up of people who lived in nearby apartments hanging outside,” Casey said. “Now, people are in survival mode. There’s more fear coming from them.”
Kevin Knoble, acting captain of the San Francisco Police Department’s Tenderloin Station, said he has seen the night market evolve and migrate with increasing enforcement over the past year. He acknowledged that policing alone can’t solve the neighborhood’s problems but said there have been noticeable improvements.
“We’ve been putting the genie back in the bottle, and they are going very slowly,” Knoble said. “The consistent efforts by the [police] department impacted the culture of what’s going on. As people do, they’ve naturally adjusted their practices and activities. But we’ve seen an improvement.”
What is Lurie’s plan?
Lurie, who has said that solving issues on Sixth Street is a priority for his administration, has taken several walks through the neighborhood since his inauguration, according to his spokesperson Charles Lutvak.
Lurie’s first proposed law called for a fentanyl emergency to loosen regulations and quickly sign contracts, somewhat like his predecessor, London Breed, did in 2021. But details on how he plans to use the authority, which would last four years according to the legislation, remain scant. Supervisors are scheduled to vote on the declaration for the first time Wednesday.
Lurie has called for a 16-bed, around-the-clock drop-in center to act as an alternative hospital for people experiencing drug and mental health crises. He also said on the campaign trail he wants to build 1,500 shelter beds in six months. When asked how his plans differ from those of the previous administration, Lurie told The Standard his office will focus on collaboration and acquiring more treatment beds.
“I’ve said it over and over again: more mental health beds, more drug treatment beds,” Lurie said. “That’s why the fentanyl state of emergency ordinance is critical.”
Lurie held a meeting Thursday in a coworking space near Sixth and Mission to discuss solutions with law enforcement, Public Works, and other city officials. The Standard was denied access.
On the way into the meeting, he and more than a dozen city staffers passed a woman on the street who was sobbing and had visibly soiled herself. Lurie didn’t stop to talk to her but at the meeting he said the situation was “unacceptable,” according to a source. Paramedics arrived shortly after and provided the woman with a new pair of pants, but she refused additional services and remained on the street.
A source who was at the meeting said SFPD chief Bill Scott advocated for the creation of an outdoor triage center in the alleyway of Jessie Street, where officers could direct drug users to treatment or jail. Lurie’s office had no comment on this to The Standard.
Some drug policy experts have argued that jailing users puts them at a higher risk of overdosing upon release. Others contend that the city must intervene when people are unable or unwilling to help themselves.
Cameron Hill, 32, had just been released from a 26-day stint in jail for drug charges when The Standard met him on Sixth on a recent Wednesday night.
Hill said he was able to taper off fentanyl while in jail by using the withdrawal medication Suboxone. He gained weight, too, about 27 pounds over the month, he said, explaining that he would not have been able to quit the deadly opioid if he hadn’t been locked up. Still, he argued that arrests aren’t an effective strategy for solving the drug crisis, calling the approach cruel.
“That’s fucked up,” he said. “Get us all housed.”