The Summer of Love in San Francisco

Here are some more fun facts about San Francisco. After all, when you think of the summer of love, you naturally think of San Francisco. While the media attention is focused on the pandemic in red states, blue states are doing an awful job keeping their citizens healthy and alive. After all, most coronavirus deaths have been occurring in places like New York, New Jersey and Michigan. They have been occurring because Democratic governors sent recovering coronavirus patients to nursing homes, where they infected the elderly.

Since the story does not make Trump look bad, the media has ignored it. 

As for San Francisco, the Wall Street Journal editorializes about its handling of the coronavirus. It locked down and enforced social distancing, except for the homeless:

San Francisco was the first U.S. city to lock down and strictly enforce its shelter-in-place order—at least against law-abiding citizens. Meanwhile, public officials and police let hundreds of the homeless crowd streets and use drugs in the downtown Tenderloin district, according to two new lawsuits against the city.

San Francisco’s homeless population increased by 20% between 2015 and 2019 but has surged since the city locked down in March. “The number of tents and makeshift shelters on Tenderloin sidewalks grew from 158 on March 3, 2020, to 391 on May 1, 2020,” one lawsuit notes. “However, the San Francisco Police Department has been directed not to remove or disturb those tents” even though “they block the sidewalks and shield criminals.”

The lawsuit includes pictures of people camping out and crowding sidewalks this spring. One worker deemed essential by the city claims she had to walk in street traffic because sidewalks were strewn with tents, human feces and trash. Businesses in the neighborhood say they have been vandalized.

The city has been filling luxury hotels with the homeless, and has been affording them access to drugs and alcohol:

Meanwhile, as a recent article in City Journal notes, San Francisco is “surreptitiously placing homeless people in luxury hotels by designating them as emergency front-line workers” and has spent $3,795.98 to buy guests alcohol, ostensibly to encourage them to shelter in place. The city has also provided complimentary cigarettes and marijuana.

Selective enforcement of the shelter-in-place order has ignored George Floyd protesters but has cracked down on anyone protesting Planned Parenthood:

Crime and drug use have increased around the hotels. Perhaps these entrepreneurs have discovered they can make a handsome profit reselling taxpayer-funded goods. Meantime, San Francisco police have cited ordinary citizens for violating the shelter-in-place order, including an 86-year-old protesting outside a Planned Parenthood clinic. George Floyd protesters have been exempt from enforcement.

So far 50 people in San Francisco have died of Covid-19. During the first six months of last year, 182 people died of drug overdoses. The lawsuits claim that San Francisco has created a public nuisance, taken private property without just compensation, and violated the equal protection of the law owed to businesses. They are asking for a court injunction to force the city to clean up the streets.

Good luck with that.