Only 3% of restaurants in crime-ridden San Francisco had no graffiti or property crime in the past month, a surprising new survey found.
Restaurants are looking for the best cleaning solutions on social media as they are left to spend thousands of dollars cleaning up graffiti and repairing broken windows, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which reviewed a Golden Gate Restaurant Association survey of 74 restaurants.
Recently, Supreme Pizza in the Mission District was hit with acid, owner Leandro Jayme told ABC 7.
“This is acid, so you can’t just throw it away,” he said, pointing to the grime on the window. “They need to replace the glass.”
To do so would cost about $300, he added.
If business owners don’t clean up the mess, they not only face losing potential customers — they can also face a $500 fine from the city if the vandalism isn’t repaired within 30 days.
That adds to the feeling that running a small business in San Francisco is like “death by a thousand cuts,” according to Hanson Li, a partner in three different restaurants.
Only 3% of San Francisco restaurants did not experience graffiti or property crime in the past month, according to a survey by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
He said Lazy Susan, a Chinese eatery, was broken into late last month, just days after his store was vandalized — and weeks after another of his group’s bars was vandalized.
“All these seemingly small things not only have a real dollar impact but then, like, the repairs are going to be double what they took,” Li previously told the San Francisco Gate.
The problem appears to have started during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the city’s Board of Supervisors paused any enforcement of graffiti removal.
“When we have more than a year will not enforce [it]if we don’t have that stick with the carrot… sometimes people will just leave it on their building and then … more tags will come and another and another,” Rachel Gordon, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Works told ABC 7.
Then about a year ago, the department introduced a pilot program to remove and paint over graffiti in public areas that affected small businesses, at no cost to them.
The problem appears to have started during the COVID-19 outbreak, when the city’s Board of Supervisors paused any enforcement of graffiti removal. Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images Over the past six months, 311 has reportedly received 10,000 reports of graffiti on commercial buildings and sidewalks.Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
The city’s 311 call center received 10,000 reports of graffiti on commercial buildings and sidewalks in the past six months, according to the Chronicle.
Overall, requests to clean up graffiti have jumped 74% since the pilot program was introduced, Gordon told ABC 7.
But the response rate for those calls remains low, despite DPW’s goal of responding to such requests on public property within 48 hours and private property calls within 72 hours.
Since 2021, the Chronicle reports, the department’s “on-time” response rate is below 55% and hit a low of 14% last year.
San Francisco, meanwhile, has spent $1 million in grants for vandalism relief since 2021 and allocated another $500,000 over the summer due to demand, the Chronicle reported, which found nearly 800 businesses received either $1,000 or $2,000 grants for broken windows, graffiti or other vandalism.
But restaurateurs say there aren’t enough funds to deal with the ongoing problem.
San Francisco has spent $1 million in grants for vandalism relief since 2021 and is allocating another $500,000 over the summer to meet the surge in demand. Hearst Press via Getty Images
One restaurant, Shuggie’s, received a $1,000 grant for graffiti last year, but after spending $3,000 to clean up vandalism almost every day, co-owner Kayla Abe said they decided to just give up.
“It’s disappointing,” he told the Chronicle. “It felt like there was a huge disconnect between what the city thought was good for us and how well we actually struggled on the field.”
The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has taken it upon itself to get the city to act, with Executive Director Laurie Thomas meeting with city officials to discuss the issue.
He pushed for “low-hanging fruit,” like pausing fines for businesses that don’t clean up graffiti.
“Anything that can help increase customers coming in and [businesses’] survival, I think is important,” he told the outlet.
Thomas noted that he found the police department’s decision to reassign an officer to investigate graffiti full-time encouraging.
Shuggie’s Restaurant received a $1,000 grant to address graffiti last year, but the co-owners still have to spend $3,000 a day to clean up the daily vandalism.Instagram / @shuggiespizza
Officer Martin Ferreira, who has worked in the police department for more than 20 years, said the position was created because of the “large amount of graffiti reported” and increased community misery.
“It’s gotten stronger as businesses go out, because businesses are facing more difficulties,” he said.
Nearly 30 large businesses have closed or announced plans to leave the area around San Francisco’s Union Square since January 2022, including trendy retailers like Anthropologie, Banana Republic and Crate & Barrel, as well as an investment firm that owns two of the city’s largest. hotel.
Since 2019, 47% of businesses in the area have closed, according to the San Francisco Standard.
About 203 retailers operated in and around Union Square before COVID; as of May, only 107 remained.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
