San Francisco’s Trendy “Parklets” Used As Handy “Toilets” By The Homeless – IOTW Report

San Francisco’s Trendy “Parklets” Used As Handy “Toilets” By The Homeless

City Journal

With the Covid-19 shutdown dragging on for months, and business owners and employees struggling to stay afloat, San Francisco’s restaurants, cafés, bars, and fitness centers were permitted to create patios, or “parklets,” so that they could operate outdoors. This option offered a critical lifeline. Running the gamut from modest to elaborate, the parklets soon became ubiquitous. They stretched by the hundreds along sidewalks and into streets and alleyways in every district in the city. Small-business owners and their staffs finally had some revenue coming in, and their communities rejoiced in any semblance of normal life returning.

Then, on December 6, the doors were abruptly shut on outdoor dining and health clubs. Business owners were forced to abandon the parklets that they had painstakingly designed and constructed. Many had decorated them beautifully for the holidays, counting on operating until Christmas. Since San Francisco hospitals were not overrun with Covid patients, California had given restaurants and gyms at least a few weeks to continue serving the public. Nonetheless, San Francisco mayor London Breed and public-health director Grant Colfax preemptively closed the parklets with a Stay at Home order. Almost overnight, activity in the now-abandoned spaces changed dramatically.

“My parklets are now being used as bathrooms,” says Brian Cassanego, owner of The Wine Jar and Noir Lounge. “Some guy was camping in one. I find empty cans of beer, needles. The parklets have become homeless shelters and drug dens. Even when we deep clean, which will cost us more money, who will want to sit in them when we are allowed to come back?” More

In July San Francisco offered a free guide to creating parklets and streeteries for local restaurants. More

10 Comments on San Francisco’s Trendy “Parklets” Used As Handy “Toilets” By The Homeless

  1. Restaurant owners should just five up on it and start thinking about getting into another business.

    I hear the firearm and ammunition industries are presenting some good opportunities now.

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  2. I’m afraid if I had a restaurant there, it would meet with a devastating electrical fire. And poof, just like that, I’d collect my insurance money and be outta the shithole known as California.

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  3. After the CCP takes over the country they’ll round up all those vagrants and they’ll never be seen again. The CCP doesn’t need a vagrant class of democrat party voters.

    Come to think of it, the democrat party is getting to the point where it doesn’t actually need voters either.

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  4. To Nowut Ameen : Who says we are electing them into office ?
    Have you been watching ANY news , AT ALL ?
    With all the corruption and fraudulent “voting” that has gone on very recently , do you really think that this is the FIRST time this criminal tampering with the voting has happened ?
    WAKE UP !
    This corruption has been going on for YEARS !
    People are just now noticing it , because the crooked bastard$ have overstepped their bounds .
    Study some history !
    There have been people pulling this corrupt $hit since before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence !

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  5. The forced imposition of a communist command economy continues. This requires the total ruin of the middle class, the “bourgeoisie” so hated by communists. Instead of economic freedom, the Party bosses decide who gets to open/run a business. And that is what we are seeing, forced communist takeover.

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