Posted on 07/03/2018 9:23:59 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Tourists are turning away from the City by the Bay, while a huge medical convention has cancelled plans to meet in San Francisco, saying its members don’t feel safe on the streets.
Locals may feel comfortable, but visitors are often shocked when the reality of San Francisco’s streets is a far cry from its postcard image.
Tourists once took home memories of famed cable cars. These days, too often it is of the image of someone begging, or dancing in circles, or just wandering around the streets intoxicated or mentally ill.
“You can smell it,” says one tourist.
“I come from a third world county and it is not as bad as this,” says another.
Now it’s seriously affecting the city’s biggest business: tourism.
“They feel their safety is as risk because they are seeing so many people with issues,” says Kevin Carroll of the San Francisco Hotel Council.
“They see people laying on the streets — petty crimes going on in the streets,” says Joe D’Alessandro with Travel SF.
Tourism rakes in $9 billion per year in San Francisco, so officials have been reluctant to go public with the problem. In part, it is because it makes the city look bad and that’s bad for business.
“Restaurants, taxis, people spend more money outside hotels than inside and for that reason it is something we should all be concerned about,” says Carroll.
A major medical association has pulled its $40 million convention out of San Francisco over the state of the streets.
“The convention felt that the streets of San Francisco are not a place that a lot of their delegates wanted to come to,” says Alessandro.
The medical group is not alone.
“A number of groups are concerned about the streets of San Francisco,” says Alessandro. “They say ‘we don’t know if the streets are safe, we don’t know if we want to meet here.’”
San Francisco spends over $300 million each year on housing and homeless programs, but you wouldn’t know it walking down Market Street.
“It’s obviously not making the difference that it needs to,” says Carroll.
“We are not going to able to accept bad behavior going forward,” says Alessandro. “We have to be compassionate about people in need – but if people are breaking the law.”
Alessandro has been saying this for years but the problem persists.
“There have been some steps in the right direction -we just need a lot more,” he says.
The hotel industry is pressing for a heightened police presence in tourist spots to give people the feeling of safety and comfort. They also want the existing laws on drugs and loitering better-enforced.
If you like small towns California is still nice in some places.
I like Northern California. Mount Shasta is a really nice little town.
I don’t like big cities and prefer not to visit them any more than necessary.
I had to visit Seattle last month and could not wait to get out. Seemed like there were homeless under every bridge.
Seattle is in a race to the bottom with Frisco and I wouldn’t be surprised if it got there first.
Sorry to say it...but that town is not a place to visit...Nor is L.A.
How much of that is lining some Pol’s pockets...?
Ship them to Haiti....!!!
I had a recruiting firm contact me about a job over there and they were gushing about the salary being $120k/yr. But with high cost of living, high crimes rates, state income taxes and extremely high housing cost (a simple 2x2 house is going for $6,000/month). I just told them NO WAY JOSÉ!
Not too long ago my twenty something niece visited SF with a group of her girlfriends. Her primary memory of the city? It smelled (mostly of urine).
What kind of a solution is that? Why New Mexico?
San Francisco use to be my favorite, most beautiful big city.
Today a serious crap fest not worth visiting.
Don’t forget the fags. We simply cannot forget the fags
Normally, I admire dedication...
Okie
Couple years ago
My family was driving Pacific Coast Highway from Seattle to SanDiego.
When getting to Frisco on a Friday evening.
Going in to the city traffic was stoopid busy.
I turned on the radio to see what was up.
They were having the largest gay festival the world had ever seen.
I told my son we could go to the city and he could assault Jesus on a street corner and get a notice to appear.
Some fag grabbs your ass and you kick his ass you will be thrown in jail forever.
We spent the weekend in NAPA.
TS. Just raise your carbon taxes San Suckcisco that’ll fix it. Oh, and pass more gun laws.
I figured the guy who made the comment that his Third World home was cleaner was from India, being that it’s a medical convention. I’ve been to India too. DEFINITELY Third World in what you see on the streets. But looking back, there was some order to it. The people weren’t doped out and they definitely weren’t using the streets as toilets. Hard to believe it only took SF 20 years to go from First World to, I guess, Fourth World.
It’s always Democrat run cities that people want to avoid.
I love auto correct
I attended an IEEE embedded conferenece in 2000 in SF and it was scary walking from my hotel to the conference center.
I traveled with my Glock 36 on this trip — 45ACP and mags < = 10 rounds to stay within California constraints. You can probably guess whether I left this essential tool in my hotel room or carried it on my person.
Tent cities just like Sheriff Joe Arpaio built. Provide all the comfort of homes, TV, Cable, a place to crap, a place to clean up, internet. Swamp coolers and fans for air conditioning. Have decent medical staff and mental health staff.
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