SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – San Franciscans fed up with homeless drug addicts and their dealers in their neighborhood are once again taking matters into their own hands.
Criminal activity on an alley in Ingleside Terrace is so bad that the city has signed off on gating it off from the public.
A little alleyway connects a section of Ocean Avenue with the Ingleside Terrace neighborhood with homes on both sides where it meets Urbano Drive.
It’s unobstructed now but a few weeks ago someone put a big piece of plywood which blocked access.
It came down, apparently, after some other neighbors complained.
It is unknown who put up the plywood but other business owners on the strip say the Ingleside pathway has become more and more of a problem because of drug dealing and homelessness.
“They exchange all kinds of needles back-and-forth. I stopped walking through their alley now for a few years, I’m afraid to,” Tim Zaracotas said.
Other business owners near the pathway say the alley if often littered with human waste, needles, and other debris associated with the homeless drug users and dealers who frequent it.
While some have sympathy for the families with young children who live nearby, they would rather it be better managed by the city, than blocked off since they say it’s been a public right of way for over 100 years.
The plywood came down but it’s likely the pathway will be closed off to the public in the near future since the head of the Department of Public Works signed at the director’s order allowing the lane to be sealed off at both ends by a temporarily locked gate.
Their agency’s spokesperson calling it a matter of public health and safety.