Was Sit/Lie Unfair to the Haight?

By: Scott James

There could be some media navel gazing this week in the wake of news that the Haight has been hurt by San Francisco’s controversial sit/lie law.

Well, not the law itself. It has yet to be enforced in any substantial way.

But the massive amount of news coverage last year about the anti-vagrancy ordinance (which narrowly passed in November) focused almost entirely on the Haight. All that press about marauding violent street punks taking over sidewalks has had an impact. Some merchants say their business is down, tourist visits dropped in 2010, and the idea that the Haight is dangerous has colored public opinion.

The toll of the sit/lie publicity on the Haight is the subject of my column today. 

What happened to the Haight is, unfortunately, textbook modern journalism. In an age of narrative storytelling, the neighborhood became the “face” on the story. Even though the law impacts the entire city, almost every news report cited the Haight. There are problems with aggressive panhandling and vagrancy in Union Square (which has far more visitors), but if you read a newspaper or watched TV news during the sit/lie campaign you’d have thought the Haight was the only place impacted.

That happened because the grassroots effort behind the law started in the Haight, and proponents kept the attention focused there. This infuriated some local merchants whose hearts sank when they saw their neighborhood repeatedly portrayed as a violent war zone. Let’s face it, no one wants to venture to buy tie-dyed t-shirts in a hood where they’ve been told they might get a shiv in the gut.

That’s a hyped, outrageous and inaccurate portrayal of the Haight, but go online and you’ll find plenty of postings (most anonymous) where that is now the spin. In the Internet age, the story that started in the mainstream press has since gone viral.

But, in fact, it’s easy to argue that these are some of the best days for the neighborhood. Only newbies or those with short memories have forgotten the 1980s and 1990s when the neighborhood was in decay and crack dealing was rampant.

Instead, today, there’s a renaissance of sorts in the Haight. You can see it at the Haight Street Market, which recently expanded and got a facelift. Customers fill aisles – this is a true neighborhood favorite – despite the fact that Whole Foods opened just down the street (where business is also booming).

Then there’s The Booksmith. Taken over by new owners four years ago (my friends Christin Evans and Praveen Madan), the bookstore consistently receives national attention and large crowds for its literary events. The store’s Bookswap parties (there’s one tonight) regularly sell out, and have become the place for smarty, bookish singles to mingle.

And it’s not just what’s new that defines the Haight – hit the Club Deluxe bar for its famous greyhounds, where they squeeze grapefruits to order as you watch, creating what has long been one of the best cocktails in San Francisco.

This doesn’t mean there haven’t been problems. But they’ve been widely known for many years before the avalanche of media coverage in 2010. How well known? For example, last Saturday morning at London’s Heathrow airport a Rough Guide tour book was found for sale about San Francisco. The guide noted vagrants in the Haight – the book was published in 2008.

To be sure, some of the recent incidents involving young street kids have been very disturbing. One involving a resident who nearly had his eyes gouged out in a fight was credited with starting the entire movement to create the sit/lie law.

But even that case was more complex than most in the media portrayed it. I found the victim whose case had become the rallying cry (no other reporters had gotten the man’s side of the story) and found that he was not in favor of sit/lie. He called the law “bullshit.”

In fact, there has been (and continues to be) deep skepticism in the Haight about the law and the media spin. In the end, the majority of voters in the Haight voted against sit/lie, according to an analysis by SFAppeal.

So now the Haight is dealing with a law most voters did not want, and fallout from a torrential media storm that has left them soaked in questions of fairness.