90-day drug dealing crackdown in S.F.? Why dealers and users say it

May 26, 2023

Word that city honchos are talking about erasing out-in-the-open clusters of drug dealing in San Francisco in just 90 days drew a mixture of chuckles, shrugs and a few hopeful sighs from people pushing and using drugs and the fed-up businesses around them.

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Stephon Fowler said as he hawked fentanyl and crack on Sixth Street with several other dealers, as customers clustered with glass pipes and tin foil in hand. “There’s too much going on out here, and unless they bring in the Army, Navy and Marines, that’s not going to change.”

The city this month nudged close to that very concept when members of the National Guard and California Highway Patrol started operations in the city’s drug hot spots to relieve understaffed police units. And on Tuesday, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin demanded that Mayor London Breed shut down what he called open-air “drug supermarkets” in 90 days by setting up an emergency operations center.

So far, the CHP and guard soldiers appear to have moved some of the drug-dealing into new neighborhoods, such as the outer edges of the Mission District and just south of the Tenderloin. And though Breed hasn’t committed to any 90-day plan, she said she’s trying to crack down on public drug dealing.

San Francisco Chronicle