San Francisco city employees tasked with enforcing the city’s street vending rules have received so many death threats that they have been issued bulletproof vests.
Public Works inspectors, who check food carts and whether street vendors have the proper permits, have been subject to increased threats and assaults, prompting the security measure, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon told the publication that her staff have been “pushed, hit, [had] objects that were thrown at them.
“Verbal attacks are still frequent,” Gordon said. He added that some of the inspectors were punched in the stomach and their lives were threatened.
The city has cracked down on street vendors after the fencing of stolen goods became more common in busy downtown areas, including United Nations Plaza and the areas around Mission and Market streets, also known as areas where drug deals are carried out.
An investigation is underway into a San Francisco Public Works inspector caught on video knocking over a hot dog vendor’s cart earlier this month. ABC7
City officials are cracking down on street vending after Supervisor Hillary Ronen announced Tuesday that a complete ban on Mission Street will begin next month.
Meanwhile, sources told The Post that some of the peddlers and fencers are “smashers” who steal everything from medications to toiletries, soaps and shampoos at stores like Walgreens and turn around to sell them for money. fast on Market Street. and other areas where homelessness is rampant.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott acknowledged growing fencing and permitting problems in the city and attacks on inspectors.
“They have been subjected to attacks, verbal and physical attacks,” Scott told local ABC7 KGO. “So it really makes it difficult for them to do their jobs.”
Police Chief Bill Scott says illegal fencing is a problem in San Francisco and that city employees are being threatened and need protective equipment to do their jobs.
The San Francisco Police Department received $15.3 million in state grants in September and promised to conduct a series of “blitzkrieg” operations to curb retail theft, but black market fences remain a problem .
However, some community members have also taken issue with city inspectors after an incident earlier this month when a Public Works employee was caught on video pushing a street vendor’s cart to the ground in the busy area. Fisherman’s Wharf tourist attraction.
In the short video clip, an inspector dressed in a bright yellow vest chased hot dog vendor Juan Carlos Ramírez. The unidentified city worker grabbed Ramirez’s cart and pushed it to the ground, sending sausages, onions, bell peppers and buns flying across the street.
A man selling hot dogs on the street says he was embarrassed and lost money after a San Francisco Public Works employee chased him and pushed his cart. ABC7 An investigation is underway into a city employee who knocked over a hot dog cart. ABC7
“I felt embarrassed,” Ramírez told local ABC7 KGO in Spanish. “It was humiliating.”
Some street vendors said that if Public Works inspectors confiscate their cart for not having permits, they have to pay a $300 fine, which many of them cannot afford, raising questions about who they are really working for and who gets the benefits. Profits.
Meanwhile, Ronen and his staff said the continued threats to inspectors are “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“What we’ve seen over the last year and a half is that Mission Street is really inundated with large-scale fence organizations,” Santiago Lerma, Ronen’s legislative assistant, told ABC7.
Santiago Lima, legislative assistant to Supervisor Hillary Ronen, said Public Works inspectors are also asking for police protection due to increased threats. ABC7
“Our Public Works inspectors now wear bulletproof vests while walking the streets and are escorted by police.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn