Michelin-star Chef Gives Up on SF

Peter Hemsley prepares a dry-aged blue
fin tuna steak (Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle)

Michelin Award-winning chef Peter Hemsley thought that he could both succeed in business and help revive San Francisco's South-of-Market area. He has given up. [bold added]

Less than two years after Aphotic opened and drew acclaim in San Francisco, the fine dining restaurant will close.

Aphotic, which won a Michelin star in its first year of operation, announced on Instagram that it will close on Dec. 21. Chef Peter Hemsley said despite the accolades, the restaurant’s location at 816 Folsom St. in SoMa proved challenging.

“The fact that we all did this at the ugly butt end of a desolate convention center suck hole in the post-panny apocalypse, is nothing short of a small miracle,” he wrote. “And I believe in miracles — I have to as a chef and restaurant owner in these times. But I also know that miracles do not last forever.⁠”

In an email to the Chronicle, he wrote, “The energy may come back to that part of town in the years to come, but it will be a long and painful battle. Longer, much longer than anyone expected.”

Aphotic's dry-aged blue fin tuna steak (Suzuki/Chronicle)

Hemsley, an alum of the Michelin-starred Quince, opened the moody Aphotic last March in the former home of Palette, his combination art gallery-fine dining restaurant. It served an ambitious, seafood-focused tasting menu and standout cocktails. Aphotic is one of the rare restaurants with a license that allows it to distill its own spirits, producing a seaweed-infused gin...

In an email to supporters announcing the closure, Hemsley wrote that he “stayed put where I am because I was always charmed by the architecture of my restaurant, and the potential it had as an exceptional dining venue from within." Yet he said he increasingly felt the city failed to address post-pandemic challenges in Aphotic’s neighborhood. In the message, he cited “fear of parking on the street due to broken windows,” construction and other issues, coupled with the rising costs of doing business.

Mayor Breed and other San Francisco boosters are trying to make us believe that San Francisco has put the worst of homelessness, crime, open-air drug use, and general filth behind it.

To get at the truth watch the behavior of Peter Hemsley and other business people who have their own money on the line.

Once an Asset, Now a Liability

Proximity to San Francisco was once an asset but is now a liability to some Bay Area counties.

Headline: San Francisco's rotten reputation is killing tourism across the Bay Area [bold added]

According to the survey results, the city’s rotten reputation — regardless of whether this perception was valid or not — is actively deterring domestic travelers from even considering the rest of the region.

A striking number of respondents, nearly half in some cases, agreed that San Francisco’s woes have made visiting a county like Sonoma unattractive, even though it’s 45 miles away and vastly different from the city.

We unwound at the Kenwood Inn in Sonoma County

Fixing San Francisco's problems isn't as critical to the economic health of counties that are tech-based, but those dependent on travel and leisure, like Sonoma and Napa, have been particularly affected.

Speaking from personal experience, we've been very satisfied with overnight trips to Wine Country. Napa and Sonoma counties are well over an hour's drive from San Francisco, but both geographically (hot and dry during the summer) and culturally they feel much more distant. Here's hoping that they can endure the pain while San Francisco fixes itself.

Ticket to Ride

The old SF Greyhound station on 7th was clean, safe
and reliable. It has since moved to the Transbay terminal.

An old-fashioned way of getting the homeless out of San Francisco is being revived: [bold added]

Mayor London Breed on Thursday ordered city employees to offer homeless people a bus ticket out of town before presenting shelter or housing as an option.

...Thursday’s directive marks Breed’s latest effort to prove she’s taking a firm stance to address the city’s homelessness and overdose crises. Breed is in the middle of a tough re-election fight with many voters focused on the conditions of city streets and the state of unsheltered homelessness.

...The program of busing people out of San Francisco has existed for years, but it saw a sharp decline during the pandemic, prompting some critics and at least one mayoral rival to question why Breed’s administration hadn’t pushed the program more forcefully. Officials had already vowed to ramp it up earlier this year.

Frankly, if I were a homeless person in San Francisco I wouldn't take that deal. San Francisco is currently spending more than $100,000 per person on homeless services, and chances are that, if I stayed, some of it will trickle through to me, not all of it being absorbed by middlemen and bureaucrats.

Besides, how would I get my tent and shopping carts full of stuff on the bus?

When There's No Pressure to Do Something, Nothing is Done

San Diego, March 22, 2024 (Calmatters/Mercury)

One could suppose a one-party state like California may impose a solution to homelessness because there is no effective opposition, but one would be wrong. [bold added]

For the second year in a row, Democrats on Tuesday voted down a bill that sought to ban homeless encampments near schools, transit stops and other areas throughout California.

Despite the fact that cities up and down the state are grappling with a proliferation of homeless camps, legislators said they oppose penalizing down-and-out residents who sleep on public property...

During Tuesday’s hearing, more than three dozen people voiced their opposition to the bill, speaking on behalf of organizations such as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union California Action.

The bill’s supporters, who numbered far fewer, included the mayor of Vista and a representative from the city of Carlsbad.

The lone “yes” vote came from the committee’s only Republican, Sen. Kelly Seyarto of Murrieta.

“We had a slew of people that came forward to tell us about what we shouldn’t be doing,” he said. “But what the hell should we be doing? Because right now we’re not doing anything.”

Any solution would cause some inconvenience to the homeless, so the politicians do nothing, and the encampments continue to befoul the sidewalks. This is what happens when politicians have no fear of losing their jobs, and, as we've said before

Californians keep electing the same crowd that spends $billions, produces negative results, then keeps raising taxes because we supposedly haven't spent enough on these problems. As a believer in democracy, I suppose we're getting what we wanted.....and deserve.

The Incompetence We Voted For

Los Angeles,  June, 2023 (patch)

"California has been wasting billions of dollars to no good effect."

That statement can be applied to any number of topics: high-speed rail, water storage, green energy, education, "low-cost" housing, etc. In this case we're talking about homelessness. [bold added]

California has spent $24 billion to combat homelessness over the last five years—and what did it get for its money? More homelessness, according to a new state audit that should embarrass Sacramento and infuriate taxpayers.

The Legislature charged state auditor Grant Parks with reviewing the state’s homeless spending as the numbers camping on streets rise. Alas, his report this week concludes that the state “lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs.”

The agency in charge “has not consistently tracked and evaluated the State’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness,” he adds. Translation: California has been wasting billions of dollars to no good effect.

According to the audit, 181,399 people were homeless at some point in 2023, up from 118,552 in 2013 and 151,278 in 2019.

Californians keep electing the same crowd that spends $billions, produces negative results, then keeps raising taxes because we supposedly haven't spent enough on these problems. As a believer in democracy, I suppose we're getting what we wanted.....and deserve.

Primary Election Day

Foster City Library

I did my civic duty and cast my ballot in person earlier today at the Foster City library.

There were a limited number of offices to vote on, and only one proposition, Proposition 1, a $6.4 billion bond to build mental health treatment facilities and housing for the homeless. I voted "no" on Prop. 1, not because I don't want to spend money on mental health and/or the homeless but because I have little faith that the monies will actually help the intended recipients. They'll probably be diverted to consultants, planners, government agencies, and non-profits. We've been fooled before: in 2014 Californians approved a $7.5 billion bond measure to build more water storage; ten years later not one reservoir has been built.

The U.S. Senate race I also found interesting because of the way in which Democrat Adam Schiff "picked his opponent," Republican Steve Garvey. In California the top two vote getters in the primaries face off in the general election, and Adam Schiff ran ads that warned against Steve Garvey's conservatism, boosting the latter's profile amongst Republicans and some independents. A Democrat like Katie Porter would have likely proved a tougher opponent in November. If one is a fan of political strategy, one has to give credit where it's due.

Portland, OR: Where the People Get What They Want

One of an estimated 800 encampments in Portland

Portland reverses its 3-year Progressive experiment on "victimless" drugs.

Oregon’s political leaders...are now on the cusp of ending a three-year experiment as the first and only state in the nation to allow people to freely use drugs from heroin to cocaine to fentanyl...

Backers of the 2020 ballot measure, which passed with 58% support, successfully convinced their fellow residents of the left-leaning state that decriminalization would mean fewer nonviolent drug addicts in prison and more in treatment.

But while the first part of the prediction proved true, the second didn’t. Without the threat of imprisonment, few people have proved willing to take advantage of the expanded addiction services the measure funded. Instead, public drug use has become rampant, as people can now smoke fentanyl and use other drugs on sidewalks with no consequences.

Residents, business owners and law-enforcement officials have become infuriated, and a poll last year found most people wanted to reverse course and make drug possession a crime again. Advocates said they would try to put a measure on this year’s ballot ending decriminalization if the legislature didn’t act.

Up and down the West Coast people are realizing that these nostrums don't work. Homelessness, property crime, and deaths from substance abuse are all up because of the Progressive belief that "carceral" systems not only unjustly punish but are racist to boot. The whole episode has a silver lining: democracy works, because the voters got what they wanted in 2020, and now they're getting what they want in 2024.

Moving the Problem Around

Stadium Park: it's beautiful. Too bad you can't see it.

Thirteen years ago there was a homeless encampment in Stadium Park.

Five years ago the tents had been cleared.

Today they're back, not in the park itself but along the entire length of the South King Street sidewalk.

The homeless can't set up in Waikiki--heaven forbid the tourists get a false impression of our Island paradise--and as long as they don't encamp next to homes and apartments the cops will let them stay a while. However, nearby residences will have to put up with sleepers in their carports, home burglaries, upended trash cans, and the occasional tapping into outdoor power outlets.

Eventually the tents will be forced to move so that one neighborhood doesn't bear the entire burden. By moving the problem around people may think it's being solved.

SF Bus Shelters: More Negatives than Positives

It's much cleaner at Hyde & California shelterless bus stop

A heretofore unnoticed element behind the shabbiness of San Francisco was highlighted by the accidental destruction of a bus shelter.

the shelter at Hyde and California streets had been a dumping site for trash and the frequent scene of drug deals and illegal fires. One unhoused woman lived inside the shelter for months, filling the small space with her belongings, while others camped out behind it, blocking the sidewalk with tents.

But since workers removed the shelter and a nearby trash can after the October crash, the corner has cleared, four nearby business owners told the Chronicle. Years of chaos at the corner have largely disappeared.

The merchants — a cannabis dispensary owner, a hairstylist, a restaurateur and a cafe owner — want the intersection’s northwest corner to remain empty. In a move that rankled some frequent bus riders, they are urging city officials not to replace the shelter.

There's no question that bus shelters provide benefits: protection from the rain, benches that are needed by the elderly and infirm, and maps and schedules. However, when the nearby businesses don't want the shelter rebuilt, an inconvenience to their own customers, then we know that storefront conditions are desperate.

Bus shelters, like other unpatrolled public spaces, attract squatters and/or drug users. Because they provide a modest degree of shielding, they're more attractive than parks or empty sidewalks.

In towns and cities without the City's dysfunction, bus shelters are assets. In San Francisco many are net liabilities and should be removed.

Not Just From Enemies But From Friends, Too

It's no secret that Fox News has been emphasizing San Francisco's homelessness, crime, and open-air drug use problems. One response by the City's defenders is that the reports are distorted by political enemies who only want to show the negatives and hide the improvements that have been made.

Jamie Dimon (Chron photo)

However, there have been too many similar accounts from people who are not conservative Republicans. This week JPMorgan Chase CEO and Democratic Party supporter Jamie Dimon, who is here for a health-care conference, spoke about the City's failures: [bold added]

“San Francisco is in far worse shape than New York,” Dimon said in an interview Thursday on Fox Business.

“I think every city, like every country, should be thinking about what is it that makes an attractive city, you know, its parks, its art, but it’s definitely safety. It’s jobs, it’s job creation, it’s the ability to have affordable housing,” Dimon said. “Any city who doesn’t do a good job, it will lose its population — just tax more and more, it doesn’t work.”

Keith Lee (Chron photo)

On that same day TikTok food influencer Keith Lee told his 15.6 million (!) followers that he was terminating his Bay Area tour:

the Bay Area is not “a place for tourists right now. … The people in the Bay are just focused on surviving. The amount of tents and burnt-up cars that we saw people living in was shocking to say the least. As an outsider, I wish the city would step in.”

If not corrected, San Francisco's problems will destroy the Progressive dream and prevent its former Mayor Gavin Newsom from winning the Presidency. The exodus of many of its best and brightest people endangers San Francisco's status as one of America's leading cities.

It's easy to dismiss criticism as coming from people who hate San Francisco, but as Jamie Dimon and Keith Lee have shown, calls for change are coming from people who love San Francisco, too.

Hopeful and Disappointing at the Same Time

We first observed the "tiny home" phenomenon eight years ago. Although the original rationale was to live more simply while helping the environment, tiny homes were quickly seen as one of the solutions to homelessness.

Dignity Moves' 70 tiny homes on Gough St. (Chron)

The San Francisco non-profit Dignity Moves successfully completed 70 tiny homes last year at an out-of-pocket cost of $34,000 each, which doesn't include donated labor and materials. Hoping to replicate Dignity Moves' example, the City of San Francisco has been trying to get a similarly sized project started at a cost of $113,000 per home.

It’s been a year since 33 Gough St. opened, and San Francisco has still not been able to replicate its success.

City officials have spent years talking about opening a similar tiny home village in the Mission on a vacant lot near 16th and Mission streets. But that project is not expected to open until 2024. The per-cabin cost is about $104,000, but when you factor in amenities such as offices and a community room at the project, it rises to a whopping $113,000 per cabin.

The City's reasons for the cost differential are that the rules must be followed: [bold added]

Supervisor Hillary Ronen told the Chronicle that while costs are high, city rules ensure that workers are paid a fair wage and that the work is done according to its regulations. She also criticized Dignity Moves for its framing of the situation.

“I’m frustrated with their position because here you’ve got a losing bidder who did not come with the best bid now complaining about it and criticizing the rules we have in place to protect workers as the reason for that,” Ronen said. “It doesn’t give them much credibility.”

Ronen added that these rules “are in place for a reason,” and that making exceptions during a crisis — such as during the pandemic — is worthwhile, but “when we have the time to follow all of the rules, I think that we should.”

Ronen also said Dignity Moves is using “union-busting rhetoric” by suggesting the city use union labor along with volunteer labor.

The 33 Gough Street project gives hope because it shows what can be possible, but the Mission-Street project throws cold water on those hopes as the City bureaucracy reasserts its power.

Less Bad--Don't Call it Better--Than Before

Unusual sight this week: no tents at Larkin & Eddy (Chron)

San Francisco cleaned up its streets for the Dreamforce conference in September and APEC in November. How quickly would homeless encampments come back? The consensus seems to be not quickly and not as extensively.

So far, the diminished homeless presence in and around what was the cordoned-off APEC zone in the South of Market area appears to be holding. Even in the Tenderloin, street conditions seemed to be a bit better than usual on a recent morning, though some local leaders said they were seeing signs that the pre-APEC status quo is returning to their neighborhood, which has long struggled to address open-air drug markets and homelessness.

...the areas radiating from the edges of the zone, particularly in the Tenderloin past Market Street and SoMa west of Fifth Street, seemed to only moderately be back to pre-APEC levels.

There were fewer tents than normal except at perennial cluster points such as Willow Street and along parts of Ellis and Eddy streets. Unhoused people throughout the Tenderloin and SoMa said city street cleaning and police patrols were maintaining what they thought was stepped-up pressure in the past month.

Plaudits to Mayor Breed and the City for making San Francisco less dystopian. However, long-lasting solutions won't be effected if the homeless and their advocates continue to hold this viewpoint: [bold added]

“I’ve already had a couple of ambassador types tell me to move and I tell them to get lost,” Billy Saccorccio, 41, said as he panhandled on Powell Street in front of the Walgreens near the cable car turnaround at 10:30 a.m. “I get it — they want us gone. They need things clear for the tourists. Do I want to live like this? F—, no. You want us gone, give us somewhere to live, bro.”

SF: Doubt Has Only Started to Creep In

Homeless encampment, Ellis St., SF (Chron photo)

The grumblings have gotten louder. More San Francisco voters have become disenchanted with Progressive governance. [bold added]

Voters are dissatisfied with the status quo — which many seem to associate with incompetent progressive governance. Last year, fed-up San Franciscans recalled progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, ousted three members of a school board that had drawn national scorn for its out-of-touch priorities and elected moderate Democrat Joel Engardio to the Board of Supervisors over progressive incumbent Gordon Mar...

Progressive Democrats across California are increasingly fighting the growing perception that they pursue ideological purity to the point of absurdity. Progressive state lawmakers in Sacramento, for example, hastily reversed themselves after receiving intense public backlash for killing a bill to increase criminal sentences for repeat child traffickers and for refusing to consider bills to toughen penalties for fentanyl dealers.

[Venture capitalist Lee] Edwards told me that progressives routinely dismiss criticisms of San Francisco as conservative distortions. Yet “when it comes to crime, shoplifting, homelessness, drug addiction, housing affordability, we have regressive outcomes here — and they know that!”

Despite the disaffection with Progressivism, it's way too early for Republicans to dream of being elected into any office in San Francisco.

As of September 2023, nearly two-thirds of San Franciscans were registered as Democrats and 29% were independents or voters registered with other parties. The remaining roughly 7% were registered Republicans.

At 7% of San Francisco's 500,000 voters, Republicans have zero influence. Conditions have to get much worse, and for longer, before the electorate even begins to entertain the notion that religious, gun-loving, uneducated, blue-collar deplorable Republicans might have better solutions to the City's problems.

Revival, But Not in the Way Imagined

(CBC news photo)

There are very few indoor, relatively safe, public gathering places--with restroom facilities--that remain open to all. That's why Libraries Are the New Front Line in America’s Mental-Health Crisis

Librarians are helping more patrons in crisis, and many cities are hiring social workers to help them. About two-thirds of nearly 600 library workers surveyed by Urban Librarians Unite in 2022 said they had experienced violent or aggressive behavior from patrons.

One of the few indoor public spaces open to all comers, libraries are now the scene for all that ails a public scarred by the pandemic and an opioid epidemic. For staff, that means reversing overdoses in bathrooms; confronting patrons watching pornography; or defending against people brandishing guns, or a snake in a jar. Some people come to the library to sleep, get warm or use the bathroom. Others are looking for jobs, housing or just somewhere safe to read.

Libraries have been transformed from mere repositories of books to ad hoc community centers. They provide free internet access and a growing array of services, e.g. job placement, mental-health treatment, and housing assistance.

If a person is idle, reading in a comfortable setting is an edifying and even useful way of passing the time.

When we contributed to the construction of the town library in the mid-1990's, we had hoped that it would become a valuable resource in the community.

Little did we imagine the form that it would take.

Safe for the Moment

At Kalakaua and King

The southern half of Kalakaua Avenue runs through the fancy part of Waikiki. The police regularly keep the homeless out of the area, where there's hardly a shopping cart to be seen.

Proceeding north, Kalakaua crosses over the Ala Wai Canal, and the tents start to appear. The cluster in the picture is two blocks from McKinley High and Washington Intermediate schools. Homes, apartments, retail stores, and restaurants are nearby. The main Honolulu police station is one mile west.

I shouldn't complain because my parents' house is one mile southeast and is safe for the moment. But the tents often set up on parks and sidewalks that are much closer.

When I return in February, if not sooner, I'll walk around to scope out the situation.

Hostile Architecture

Two months ago we noted how a San Francisco gallery owner was sentenced to 35 hours of community service because he hosed down a homeless woman to drive her from his entrance.

Collier Gwin apologized but still received death threats and attacks via social media. He also received support from many San Franciscans who had grown frustrated by the inability of the City to make a dent in homeless encampments and open-air drug use.

The unpermitted sprinklers (Chron photo)

Best Western Hotel in San Francisco's Tenderloin district faced a similar problem on a larger scale and tried to employ a similar solution: [bold added]

A hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin that installed overhead sprinklers along the building in an alley where homeless people frequently camp will take them down after a city inspection found they were installed without proper notice, the hotel told the Chronicle on Friday.

The inspection Thursday came after the SF Examiner published a story about the sprinklers that prompted public backlash.

Ken Patel, manager of the Best Western Red Coach Inn at 700 Eddy St., said the hotel used the sprinklers not to ward off unhoused people but to clean the sidewalk beside it, which he said is often dirtied by human waste.

He said hotel employees warned anyone camping below the sprinklers to move before they were turned on, and that the hotel used them only if no one was there.

...The clash comes as San Francisco business owners, city officials and homeless advocates struggle over how to handle homeless encampments. Advocates say sprinklers are an example of “hostile architecture” — physical barriers or deterrents like sidewalk planters, boulders or even loud music meant to discourage people from sleeping or camping in an area.

The City cleans the alley once a week, but hotel employees, as confirmed by the Chronicle, must wash the sidewalk every day.

San Francisco made Best Western remove the sprinklers because the hotel didn't give "proper notice." It's too bad that the City doesn't make people give proper notice before pitching their tent on a sidewalk.

Better Than a Policy of Neglect

SF Civic Center was once a nice area, too (2022 Chron)

When San Francisco cleaned up the area surrounding the Dreamforce conference Marc Benioff asked, "Why can’t they do it every day?" He was correct: the fix was only temporary.

[The homeless] did seem to get the message from the endless streams of police, smiling city street ambassadors and security forces that they should steer clear for now.

Said 66-year-old Jan Weith, who moved a quarter-mile away to Powell St.,

“Can’t wait ’til this thing is over and we can get back to normal.”

Sweeping a problem under the rug doesn't cure the problem, but it does make highly trafficked areas look nicer.

There's a parallel in my hometown, where the homeless have been cleared out from expensive Waikiki. Within a few blocks from my parents' middle-class neighborhood, a half-mile from Waikiki, is always a cluster of tents. They move every few months, which is an indication that the police do monitor the situation.

Monitoring encampments and sprucing up an area for a week aren't solutions, but they're an improvement over the policy of neglect that has ruined sections of once-beautiful cities.

The Sad Tale of a San Francisco Art Gallery Owner

Collier Gwin (right) and his attorney Doug Rappaport
outside a San Francisco courtroom (Chron photo)

Collier Gwin, 72, achieved notoriety in January when he sprayed a homeless woman who was camping in front of his San Francisco art gallery. He was vilified on social media, arrested, and in July was sentenced to 35 hours of community service.

Follow-up reporting revealed that there had been many interactions between the woman, Quorum Davinc, and merchants in the "posh" Jackson Square neighborhood.

Davinc was known to drift through North Beach and the Financial District, eating restaurant handouts, sleeping in doorways and vexing merchants who regarded her both with pity and mounting frustration.

During the two weeks leading up to the hose video, Gwin said, he and his neighbors ramped up their efforts to seek help for Davinc. He said his irritation with the woman built up over time, as he witnessed her toppling garbage cans, acting hostile and scattering possessions on the sidewalk.

Collier Gwin has repeatedly apologized for his action but doesn't accept all the blame. In the WSJ he writes:

For weeks we had done the right thing. We called the police and social services 50 times over 25 days—exactly as instructed by Mayor London Breed. Everyone who showed up told us they couldn’t move the woman, no matter what she was doing to herself and the community.

In my city, shoplifting, drug dealing and drug abuse aren’t treated as crimes, but my act of frustration earned me 35 hours of community service. This is another reminder of how broken San Francisco has become and how inhospitable the current laws are to small business owners and taxpayers.

My frustration was no excuse for what I did, but does anyone realize how dire the situation is in San Francisco? People have attacked me on social media, threatened my life, and flooded my phone with profane calls. I’ve struggled to maintain my business and personal health. Yet, within the confines of our city, I’ve received overwhelming understanding because people are equally frustrated at what our San Francisco has become.

The late, great columnist Herb Caen occasionally referred to San Francisco as the City That Knows How. Lately there have been too many instances of the City that doesn't know how to do even the basic things.

Don't Try to Catch a Falling City

Chronicle illustration of San Francisco's "doom loop"

San Francisco's deterioration as a premiere American city has attracted national attention.

The Chronicle says the persistent negativism has made San Francisco seem worse than it really is.

San Francisco is a dystopian hellscape overrun by armed criminals and fentanyl addicts, its streets teeming with human waste, its buildings crumbling before our eyes.

That’s the situation according to recent stories in major media outlets from CNN to Good Morning America, from the Financial Times to Newsweek, along with legions of posters on TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, and perennial S.F. haters like Fox News, the New York Post and, of course, Elon Musk. Presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also chimed in last week.

Of course, people who live in San Francisco don't have their houses or cars broken into every day, nor is there a homeless drug addict camped in front of every house. But it happens to enough residents and businesses that they're packing up and leaving, even at great cost.

Just ask Nordstrom how much it is writing off on leasehold improvements and how many lease payments it is still on the hook for in the heart of San Francisco. Just ask Nordstrom's landlord, Westfield Centre, how many millions of dollars of equity it is abandoning by turning the building over to the lenders.

The Chronicle news department itself, to its credit, doesn't try to put a positive spin on San Francisco's problems. It has run dozens of stories on homelessness, rampant shoplifting, home and car burglaries, open-air drug use, and police inaction and defunding. Last year the Chronicle reported that 8% of San Francisco residents plan to move to a different city in the next twelve months, a higher percentage than any other American city.

Frankly, I think the coverage is about right. There's no indication that San Francisco has hit bottom.

It Bothers Them a Lot, But Not Enough to Fix It

SF survey: 2019 vs 2023. Everything's getting worse (Chronicle chart).

An April survey showed that San Francisco residents believe that City services are at their worst point in 20 years: [bold added]

San Franciscans report feeling less safe and believe their local government is doing a worse job of providing services compared to any other point over more than two decades, according to a new survey conducted by the city. The survey was released Thursday by the Controller's Office.

In results collected last year, residents graded the city with the lowest safety rating since 1996 at 3.3 out of 5, which the city calls a C+. The data shows that just 36% of residents report feeling safe walking at night, a drop from 53% in 2019, the last time the city conducted the survey.

Residents also gave the government the lowest rating since 2002 at 3 out of 5, or a grade of C. The city’s public safety and government ratings saw the biggest drops from 2019 of 16 ratings collected.

In our younger days we considered forsaking our boring suburban existence and moving to the City, where the lights were bright, the food was good, and the energy was high.

Now San Francisco seems to have sunk into a slough of despond from which it can't seem to get out of. Worse, it was a predicament of residents' own making.

the San Francisco voters seem to approve these policies on homelessness and crime because they keep re-electing leaders who spend $billions and not only do not fix the problems but make things worse.

This pair returns every spring.

We're glad we stayed in our sleepy Peninsula town, where the biggest problem is removing duck poop from our walkway.