Frustrated San Francisco residents are suing the city over drug policies they say “herd” addicts into their neighborhood, devastating the community—just as Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed Democratic cities were safer than Republican ones.
Three businesses and five anonymous individuals filed a lawsuit accusing city officials of turning the Tenderloin into a “drug containment zone,” where dealers openly sell narcotics. The suit states San Francisco “effectively herds fentanyl users into the Tenderloin,” even alleging that “some organizations [go] so far as to deliver drug kits to their sidewalk encampments.”
The lawsuit surfaced just one day after Newsom blasted President Trump for deploying the National Guard to cities like Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and possibly Chicago. Newsom claimed Trump was unfairly targeting Democrat-led cities, arguing crime was worse in Republican areas.
“Look at the murder rate that’s nearly four times higher than California’s—in Louisiana,” Newsom said Thursday, according to The Washington Post. “I want to present some facts to the president of the United States, and I imagine this is alarming to the president to learn these facts.” He added, “The carnage in Louisiana is well defined.”
Meanwhile, San Francisco residents described daily chaos outside their homes. The Phoenix Hotel reported “crowds of hostile people selling and using narcotics block passage of the sidewalks abutting the hotel,” with “people who appear to be gang members now openly sell fentanyl and other potent drugs.”
One anonymous mother of two said she regularly encounters “drug dealers, users openly injecting or smoking narcotics and people lying on the street who appear unconscious or dead.” She added her family often has to step over needles, human waste, and avoid “unleashed dogs” that snarl at passersby.
