Crime in San Francisco, Your “Basic City Life Experience”

Vehicle window smashed in San Francisco. By TaraPatta @ Shutterstock.com

The Cost of Crime

CNN’s Kyung Lah recently visited San Francisco to interview city officials. Lah was in SF with CNN colleague Jason Kravarik. In Lah’s words, here’s what happened:

Got robbed. Again. @jasonkCNN & I were at city hall in San Francisco to do an interview for @CNN. We had security to watch our rental car + crew car. Thieves did this in under 4 seconds. Security stopped the jerks from stealing other bags. But seriously- this is ridiculous

BTW; @jasonkCNN and I are in San Francisco doing a story about voter discontent bc of rampant street crime #irony

Technology entrepreneur Snehal Antani tweeted about the crime in the City by the Bay:

A teammate visiting San Francisco for an offsite called me frantically last night. After dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, they came back to a smashed car window and 2 stolen backpacks. $10K in gear lost, passports gone, etc. #SanFrancisco…

So now I need to include a pre-visit security brief to people traveling San Francisco. This is a big reason I’m hesitant to open an office in the city versus keeping a remote team and occasionally meeting up at a location to whiteboard… And my teammates will be scarred forever, being robbed hits you at your core, especially when it’s thousands of dollars of loss. There is no downtown recovery without an aggressive push for safety @LondonBreed.

As the WSJ’s James Freeman reports, London Breed is mayor of San Francisco.

Appealing to the mayor to ensure safe streets after such an incident would seem to be a reasonable response by Mr. Antani. But of course the city’s flight from reasonable public discourse on crime and policing is a big reason such crimes have become so common.

Former police commissioner John Hamasaki responded to Mr. Antani on Twitter:

Interesting. Would getting your car window broken and some stuff stolen leave you “scarred forever”?

Is this what the suburbs do to you? Shelter you from basic city life experiences so that when they happen you are broken to the core?

As Mr. Freeman notes, “Trying to give Mr. Hamasaki every benefit of the doubt, one might be tempted to think that he’s preaching some sort of rugged self-reliance. But he’s a committed leftist who supports universal basic income and a host of other extreme nanny-state programs.”

These events come on the heels of The San Francisco Standard reporting that Whole Foods’ flagship store is closing a little more than a year after its opening. A City Hall source told The Standard the company cited deteriorating street conditions around drug use and crime near the grocery store as a reason for its closure.

From a Whole Foods Spokesman:

“If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in the store, we will evaluate a reopening of our Trinity location.”

Meanwhile, there are fears of a “doom loop.” A doom loop, according to The SF Standard, is a cascade of negative financial impacts compounding and spreading across the city.

SF City Hall officials currently expect a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget.