It's true that we make a lot of cracks around these parts about how San Francisco is an unlivable, terrifying, dangerous wasteland.
Folks, I am sorry to report: It's true. All of it. Case in point: The city's Trinity Place Whole Foods, which recently closed down after being subject to conditions one could only charitably call "third-world":
When Whole Foods announced in mid-April that it was closing the store, citing the safety of its employees, many in San Francisco saw it as a representation of some of the city's most intractable problems: property crimes like shoplifting and car break-ins, an entrenched network of dealers selling fentanyl and other illicit drugs and people suffering from untreated mental illness wandering the streets.
(Just a brief note here: These problems are not "intractable." They are easily solvable. Get a proactive police force out on the streets, get a city government with its full support behind the police, show zero tolerance for even petty crimes: Boom, problem solved within a few weeks.)
Anyway, yes, the Whole Foods was subject to "property crimes" such as "shoplifting," as well as drug dealers and people suffering from mental illness episodes.
But that's only a generalized summary of what happened there. The reality sounds like it was much, much worse:
People threatened employees with guns, knives and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought and tried to defecate on the floor, according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem.
Five hundred and sixty-eight calls. I feel like after you make that many, the police department probably just starts hanging up when it's you.
But seriously: Armed assault? "Flinging food?" Pooping on the floor? This is honestly the sort of thing you expect to find in a rapidly disintegrating republic with crumbling social infrastructure and no hope of recovery.
Maybe that's a bit too on the nose. Then again, it really does seem like the store was in the middle of a war-torn banana republic:
"Male w/machete is back," the report on one 911 call states. "Another security guard was just assaulted," another says. A man with a four-inch knife attacked several security guards, then sprayed store employees with foam from a fire extinguisher, according to a third.
In September, a 30-year-old man died in the bathroom from an overdose of fentanyl, a highly potent opioid, and methamphetamine.
Police also shared reports of thieves "walking out with armfuls of alcohol," while shopping baskets disappeared by the hundreds.
No wonder they shut it down. It was a money pit, and a legitimately dangerous one as well.
