The Outdoor Table Filled With Illegal Drugs

The Hot New Store on Golden Gate and Hyde

As just about anyone who lives in San Francisco knows, the Tenderloin is home to one of the largest underground drug markets in the United States. At any given time there are approximately 500 dealers, mostly Honduran nationals, working the area. They stand on the blocks, selling just about every illegal substance on the market out of backpacks bursting with goods.

“Hey mama, hey mama, what you want?,” the guys ask me as I pass by during the day. “Nothing, thanks,” I say, with a smile. They politely retreat. Other people do buy, and the sale is made surreptitiously. Dollar bills swiftly pass from one hand, replaced by products wrapped in plastic.

The Table

Now some San Francisco drug dealers have elevated their business.

JJ Smith is a San Franciscan who walks the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, helping people in the worst throes of addiction access recovery treatment. Today, at approximately 4:30 in the morning, he saw and videoed what shocked even him.

Under a nice blue tarp was a foldout table groaning with a large array of prepackaged drugs. Fentanyl, Xanax, crack cocaine, methamphetamine and more were all professionally and attractively displayed.

Instead of braving the elements on the corner or selling on the sly, these dealers were sitting in chairs and hawking their wares at the makeshift store.

“I drive down the street and I seen the table with the tarp,” says Smith. “There was a couple of guys and girls at the table. I found someone to walk over there with me. I put on a face mask and the guys at the table asked me what I need.”

According to Smith, the merchants don’t appear to be the radical harm reductionists who give “safe supply” drugs to addicts at no charge. Word has it that members of the Drug User Liberation Front are in town, distributing boxes labeled with which drugs are inside to the inhabitants of the Van Ness encampments, but so far these are unsubstantiated rumors.

“No, the drugs were definitely not free,” says Smith. “Everyone was paying for it. $15 for a rock of crack. It was packaged up on the table for pickup. It was so busy; the whole block was busy. It is heavy out there. You are bumping shoulders with people.”

It appears these are the same dealers who are contracted by the international cartels. Now they are so comfortable in their trade that they are not even making an effort to hide. The sleight of hand moves are replaced by an outdoor stall complete with “step right up!” barkers.

The Shoppers

So who are these middle-of-the-night shoppers?

“Everyone looked like they were in their 20s, under 25 years old, of all races” says Smith. “I saw a guy who looked like he was about 17. People were pulling up in their cars, buying and getting high in their cars.”

Police officers did not appear to be in the area, and the hundreds of Urban Alchemy workers, who are contracted by the city to monitor the community and tamper down criminal activity, don’t arrive until six in the morning.

At daylight, the drug table folded up. The streets returned to a more normal level of craziness.

The Officials

I asked Smith if he thought the district’s supervisor, Dean Preston, is aware of the latest development and he said he must be. It is his district, after all, and the dealing is out in the open as if it were legal.

The table Smith saw and recorded may be the first of a new type of farmer’s market. Yet rather than selling nutritious fruits and vegetables, they’re selling the narcotics that are killing roughly two people a day in San Francisco.

“It never was like this before,” says Smith. “No one is trying to hide it anymore. They don’t care. The police need to move in and arrest all of them.”

San Francisco is down over 600 sworn officers, however, so have been stretched thin. In late March nine out of eleven city supervisors approved $25 million in supplemental funding for police overtime. Supervisor Preston (and Shamann Walton, who represents District 10) voted against the measure.

The Predictions

Will more officers on the beat help restore law and order? Certainly the area’s community members hope so. The affected blocks are home to large numbers of legitimate small businesses, struggling to survive against the onslaught of crime and squalor. The drug filled table in this story is adjacent to La Cocina Marketplace, and the drug users are occupying restaurants’ beautifully painted outdoor dining structure.

Others are low income residents, many of whom are immigrants, senior citizens, the disabled, and families with small children. They deserve a clean and safe place to live.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for your teenagers or young adult relatives, head over to the Tenderloin. They may be there, at the bustling drugstore on Golden Gate and Hyde.