San Francisco Mayor Breed proposes business curfew to reduce rampant drug use, crime
San Francisco Mayor Breed is announcing new legislation to put a curfew in a section of the Tenderloin district, a part of the city that is notorious for high crime, homelessness and public drug use.
In a post on X, Breed touted the measure.
"Shutting down open air drug markets requires strong enforcement and new approaches," she wrote. "Last year SFPD doubled the arrests of drug dealers from the year before. This year we are continuing that work and federal agents are bringing even more enforcement."
In a press statement from Tuesday, the Mayor's office revealed that it would introduce legislation to "prohibit some retail establishments selling prepacked food or tobacco products from operating between 12 a.m. (midnight) to 5 a.m. in part of the Tenderloin."
The proposal has been met with mixed responses from police, business owners and residents of San Francisco.
"Our challenges still occur at night," Assistant Chief David Lazar told KTVU in an interview. "Crowds of people that are there selling stolen property, selling narcotics. We have drug users all over. And the problem is that when you have businesses that are open, like liquor stores and smoke shops, it just attracts more people."
A local restaurant manager, Tim Benson, told the outlet that a curfew may help the neighborhood deal with crime.
"The police have been much more active, [Department of Public Works] has been out helping the cleanup effort," said Benson. "But, it seems to be mostly a daytime issue. And at nighttime, it's sort of still a wild, wild west."
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"The reason why we want it to stay open is because we have to make more money to pay rent, to pay bills, phone bills, internet bills, and we have employees," an anonymous store worker told KTVU.
"We have extra security because of the area," the worker said.
A local San Francisco resident told the outlet that the curfew plan wouldn't "work at all" because "people are still homeless and they're still out here all night long, so the markets don't really have anything to do with the crime."
The San Francisco Police Department did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.