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Thanks to literally decades of civic mismanagement, Nordstrom finally closed their downton SF department store. Here’s a list of Union Square stores that have closed recently. All of these within a few blocks of Union Square. Sad.
Abercrombie & FitchAnthropologieArcteryxAT&TBanana RepublicBrooks BrothersCB2CinemarkCoco RepublicContainer StoreCrate & BarrelDisney StoreDSW/Designer SHoe WarehouseGapGoorin BrothersH&MHiltonHuntingtonLa CocinaMarmotNordstromNordstrom RackOld NavyOffice DepotOmegaParc55Ray BanSaks Off FifthUnigloYotelAudaces fortuna iuvat
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Portland is following SF down the toilet. Nordstrom, REI, Columbia Sports, Standard Insurance are some of the big names fleeing the downtown area. Hoffman Construction is moving out, citing a lack of “space” to meet it’s needs, even though the building they currently occupy has nearly 100,000 sf available for lease.
True to it’s liberal core, a committee has been formed to study the problem. Never mind the committee consists of many of the same people that created the current mess. Why are businesses leaving? Gee, maybe things like two random stabbings influence people to stay away. Maybe it’s because a woman walking down a sidewalk got her face caved in when she was hit with a metal water bottle. There was no connection between her and her attacker.
Go figure…..
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As of April, 2,600 businesses had left downtown Portland. Four in five businesses reported being vandalized. The measure that decriminalized small amounts of drugs attracted druggies. It’s an ongoing shit show.
Portland’s Meltdown: A Progressive Experiment That ‘Has Gone Colossally Bad’ | CBN News
BTW, my son and I attended the Padres v. Giants game in San Diego yesterday. Fairly substantial homeless / drug addicts / tent city issues there as well.
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Mayor Breed wants drug testing for welfare recipients. Maybe there’s hope after all.
A seismic shift to the right in San Francisco
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And this just in…seven Starbucks locations (out of 59) in SF will close. Deterioration in quality of life, survey in which 97% of San Francisco’s restaurants have experienced graffiti or property crime in the last 30 days, SF’s office vacancy rate is 30%, population has shrunk by 40,000 residents, and Moody’s has lowered San Francisco’s credit rating outlook, given the city’s $780 million budget shortfall caused by declining tax revenues…that’s in the face of a $13.95 billion budget.
SF Budget allocation (per SF Chronicle) is as follows:
- Public works/transportation, $5.1 billion
- Community health, $3.0 billion
- Human welfare & neighborhood development, $2.8 billion
- Public protection, $1.9 billion
- General city responsibilities, $1.8 billion
- Admin & Finance, $1.4 billion
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And now it’s affecting Oakland, as a lovely pub which was open even during COVID is forced to close because of spiraling crime.
Irish pub forced to shutter as California crime wave scares patrons away
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[quote quote=7763]Mayor Breed wants drug testing for welfare recipients. Maybe there’s hope after all. A seismic shift to the right in San Francisco[/quote]
Hadn’t seen that. Wow, good to see.
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San Jose is now experiencing 96% of the visits to the city’s urban core that occurred in 2019, the final full year before the COVID shutdown. That’s the third highest level of activity in the 66 downtown districts in North America, trailing only the 103% for Las Vegas and 97% in El Paso (study by University of Toronto, used mobile phone activity as the measuring stick). Office workers are at about 40%.
News is not so good in other California cities. San Francisco is only at 67% of its pre-coronavirus visits, and Oakland is at 74% of their pre-COVID visits.
Hope emerges that downtown San Jose economic rebound is underway
And here’s the link to the study’s graphic:
https://downtownrecovery.com/charts/rankings
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I just read that in 2017 there were 221 fatal fentanyl and other drug overdoses in San Francisco. In 2019, it was 441. Through 8/31/23, there were 563, which projects to a total of 841 drug fatalities. City attorney Dennis Herrera tried to use injunctions to keep dealers out of the Tenderloin.
But an appeals court ruled that they couldn’t keep drug dealers out.
A separate article quoted multiple drug dealers as not caring about their customers or their deaths. They can make $350k annually peddling poison. The SF DA files 800 to 1,000 drug arrests and cases per year, but judges allow even repeat offenders to be let out. The new DA has been in office for 15 months and only recently convicted her first drug dealer.
SF has 20 centers that offer drug paraphernelia; e.g., clean syringes, foil, pipes, etc. in hopes of reducing overdoses. Perhaps they should reallocate their resources into abstinence, getting people clean
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Through 8/31/23, there were 563, which projects to a total of 841 drug fatalities.
San Francisco faces deadliest year for drug overdoses due to rise of fentanyl | San Francisco
Skyrocketed from 563 at the end of August to 692 at the end of September. New projected total is 923. Not sure how many overdose deaths in October or November.
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Mayor Breed had originally campaigned on “defund the police” then snuck back in a 4.4% increase in their budget from 2019 through 2022. Now she wants to cut it again…or more accurately, needs to cut it again, thanks to the continuing retail and business exodus from San Francisco.
$9.1 mms. cuts to the Sheriff/DA, $18.5 mms. cuts in the police department, $10.5 mms. cuts to the fire department. $26 mms. cut to public health, $15.4 million cut to their crappy transportation system, and $9 mms. cut to the homeless.
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SF Supervisor Dean Preston claims the city’s homelessness problem is “absolutely” the result of capitalism and that it’s “counterproductive” to arrest people openly doing drugs.
His district includes the Tenderloin. Of course. He proposes cutting $100 mms. from the bloated police department budget. He wants a law that would ban security guards from drawing their weapons for property crimes.
In other news, Elon Musk says Preston “is the person most responsible for the destruction of San Francisco.” and calls for him to be fired.
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Despite billions spent, new data shows almost a third of the nation’s homeless now live in California. That’s 181,000 people, folks.
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Thanks to literally decades of civic mismanagement, Nordstrom finally closed their downton SF department store. Here’s a list of Union Square stores that have closed recently. All of these within a few blocks of Union Square. Sad.
Abercrombie & FitchAnthropologieArcteryxAT&TBanana RepublicBrooks BrothersCB2CinemarkCoco RepublicContainer StoreCrate & BarrelDisney StoreDSW/Designer SHoe WarehouseGapGoorin BrothersH&MHiltonHuntingtonLa CocinaMarmotNordstromNordstrom RackOld NavyOffice DepotOmegaParc55Ray BanSaks Off FifthUnigloYotelFive more stores have departed the San Francisco downtown mall or are about to depart, including Adidas, Aldo, J. Crew, Madewell, and Lucky Brand. The mall now sits 75% empty and has lost $1 billion in value. Bloomingdale’s has 312,000 square feet, and people think they’re likely to leave as well.Audaces fortuna iuvat
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spend billions of dollars to “stop” anything and you are bound to get more of it.
[quote quote=8031]Despite billions spent, new data shows almost a third of the nation’s homeless now live in California. That’s 181,000 people, folks.
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Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work) -
spend billions of dollars to “stop” anything and you are bound to get more of it.
Couldn’t agree more. I’d suggest changing “Despite” to “Because of” in the title. I recall seeing one disappointed homeless/disabled person say during a television interview “I can’t believe they eliminated that program. I mean, that’s the reason I came to California.”
Well, no kidding. And that’s why we have so many homeless here. Soft touch government, soft touch populace, mild weather. Presto…if you’re unhoused, you’re welcome in California. Try not to kill any taxpayers while you’re here.
I’m not unsympathetic to someone who has fallen on hard times. But to quote a close family member who had formerly selected homelessness as a lifestyle choice “It’s attractive. No boss, you sleep out under the stars, and all you have to worry about is finding something to eat. And that’s not hard.” She is still attracted to the lifestyle in general, but she had a few close calls from unruly fellow homeless folks, so she now rents a condo. And as someone who’s seen one homeless man stab another, and who’s been threatened twice myself…I’d just as soon see homeless people someplace other than on our streets.
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British Columbia is making public drug use illegal again.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/ar-BB1lZ7kD
At least they’re headed in the right direction.
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University of Toronto, analyzing cell phone data, has found that visits to downtown San Jose (+28.2%) and downtown Oakland (+20.6%) have skyrocketed, while visits to downtown SF have (-21.6%) plummeted:
Downtown San Jose visit activity soars, Oakland jumps, San Francisco nosedives
Downtown Recovery | School of Cities
LA and San Diego are also up by 20%+.
And as of April, 2025, Google is leaving downtown San Francisco, as has KPMG. Well done and congratulations, lefty San Francisco Progressives. Your long-term pursuit of elimination of all private enterprise and its related income continues to be very successful:
Google to leave prominent SF waterfront office tower (msn.com)
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