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While walking through the San Francisco Centre might feel like a complete ghost town, Bloomingdale's was bustling with shoppers looking for deals as the store offers 70% off before shuttering for good. Downtown San Francisco's ghostly and 'depressing' mall clears out, shoppers find deals | 2:21 ABC7 News Bay Area | 593K subscribers | 333,649 views | April 3, 2025

The hollowing out of U.S. cities’ office and commercial cores is a national trend with serious consequences for millions of Americans. As more people have stayed home following the COVID-19 pandemic, foot traffic has fallen. Major retail chains are closing stores, and even prestigious properties are having a hard time retaining tenants. The shuttering of a Whole Foods market after only a year in downtown San Francisco in May 2023 received widespread coverage. Even more telling was the high-end department store Nordstrom’s decision to close its flagship store there in August after a 35-year run. In New York City, office...

According to recent statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in 2022, approximately 991,000 people over the age of 12 in the United States misuse fentanyl. This data does not specify the exact number of people addicted to fentanyl, as misuse can include non-addictive use, but it provides a significant insight into the scale of the problem. For a more precise figure on addiction specifically, one would need to consider those with an opioid use disorder where fentanyl is the primary substance involved. However, specific statistics on just fentanyl addiction are less commonly delineated in national...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed lost her reelection bid Thursday night to Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie following years in which the liberal city struggled with sky-high crime and deteriorating quality of life.Breed, whose tenure began in 2017, said she called Lurie, a venture capitalist, to concede the election two days after voters went to the polls in the rank-choice election...An ongoing drug crisis has killed hundreds of people while crime, including relentless shoplifting and property crime, has diminished the quality of life for residents and frustrated businesses.Homeless encampments also became a familiar and heartbreaking sight under Breed...Lurie, 47, warned...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed, the first black woman elected to the job, is facing defeat after early returns showed Levi’s heir Daniel Lurie with a commanding lead in the 2024 election. Politico reported: Early returns show her trailing far behind Daniel Lurie, a Levi Strauss heir and nonprofit founder, who far outspent the incumbent using his personal wealth and blamed Breed for the city’s problems with homelessness, brazen theft and drug overdoses. He leads with 56 percent of the vote using the city’s ranked-choice voting system, while Breed has 44 percent. It’s a dismal showing for Breed, a moderate...

35 years in business, family-owned market in South Beach is closing... Co-owner David Pesusic said high operation costs and mounting neighborhood crime were driving factors.Bayside Market, at 120 Brannan St. near the Embarcadero, will cease operations on Sept. 13. Some of its 12 employees will be transferred to RJ’s Market near Fisherman’s Wharf, the owners’ other location, but most will be laid off, Pesusic said. In addition to inflation-fueled bills and declining foot traffic, the small grocery and deli has suffered from “rampant” crime, near-daily shoplifting and three break-ins in the past couple years, Pesusic said. He blamed city officials...

X owner Elon Musk’s plan to move the social media platform’s headquarters out of San Francisco has some city officials eager to bid farewell to the billionaire’s business. The outlet noted that San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she had met with Musk “several months ago” but that she didn’t extend offers aimed at keeping X in the city, saying, “I’m not going to beg anybody.” The report comes after Musk announced last month that he will move the company’s headquarters to Texas in response to a new law enacted by the state of California that prohibits schools from notifying...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has ordered city officials to offer homeless people bus tickets out of town before offering them shelter or housing — a controversial policy that shunts the city’s homeless problem onto other towns. The San Francisco Chronicle reported: Mayor London Breed on Thursday ordered city employees to offer homeless people a bus ticket out of town before presenting shelter or housing as an option. The mayor’s new executive order, which marks a shift from current practices, comes amid an escalated crackdown on homeless encampments after a recent court Supreme Court ruling gave city officials more power...

Auditors have slammed a homelessness nonprofit in San Francisco for being 'careless and irresponsible' with $240 million of taxpayer money, in the latest scandal to rock California's bloated charity housing sector. HomeRise, one of the city's main providers of homeless housing, 'misused' funds, lacked financial controls and engaged in other practices that 'heightened the risk of fraud,' says a damning city report. It's the latest in a slew of revelations about waste in California's so-called 'homelessness industrial complex' — a gravy train of funders, officials, and shelter owners more keen on swallowing public funds than solving the problem.

San Francisco's Democrat Mayor is pushing for single adults to be screened for drug addiction before receiving welfare benefits amid the city's spiraling fentanyl crisis. Mayor London Breed is backing a pair of 'aggressive' public safety proposals that would require roughly 9,000 single adults on welfare to be screened and treated for illegal drug addiction or else lose their cash assistance. She is also pushing to give police more crime-fighting powers, such as the use of drones and surveillance cameras.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that viral videos showing crime and homelessness in the streets of San Francisco were not accurate. Anchor Martha Raddatz said, “I know it annoys you when people look at the city and say it’s either dangerous or crime-ridden or drugs are a huge problem, but you’ve got your own citizens saying the same thing. I think about 17% think the city’s on the right track.”

San Francisco’s government is using taxpayer money to fund a cash giveaway to black and Latino people who claim to be transgender. The city’s taxpayer-funded “Guaranteed Income for Trans People” (GIFT) program even allows illegal aliens to apply, as well as people who “engage in survival sex trades,” as uncovered by Judicial Watch. Moreover, the use of the funds by participants of the program, which was launched last year, is virtually unrestricted. The records were obtained through a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request sent to the San Francisco Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector (TTX). When announcing the...

And there was a collective gulp heard ’round City Hall. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some of London Breed’s administrators forced into a life of crime to keep the street lights on…just kidding, just kidding. But “I don’t think we’ve reached the bottom yet” is all that encouraging, no? How bad was it? Well, now that they’ve toted everything up for last year, it’s looking grim. "The city’s transfer tax revenue—which is directly tied to the sale of buildings—has fallen off a cliff due to far fewer commercial properties trading hands. Home sales in San Francisco, which provide a...

Yesterday there was a massive fire in San Francisco at a construction site next to some occupied homes. The city’s Fire Chief said her first impression on seeing the fire was that it had the potential to take out an entire city block. Thanks solely to the hard work of about 140 SFFD firefighters that didn’t happen.The fire began shortly after 6 a.m. at Octavia Boulevard and Oak Street, firefighters said.More than 40 trucks and 130 firefighters arrived soon after, with the fire reaching four alarms…Shortly after 8:30 a.m., firefighters said the blaze had been contained with no reported injuries.Cameras...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is pushing back against reports of a retail “collapse” in the city’s downtown, saying that the departure of many high-end stores is the result of “changes to retail” in the economy in general. As Breitbart News has reported, there is an ongoing retail exodus from San Francisco, particularly in the area around Union Square and Market Street, at the terminus of the city’s famed cable car, where tourists arrive. The reasons are many, but chief among them is the rise of crime in the downtown area, which spiked with the emergence of “mass looting” events,...

Office values in San Francisco have plunged 75% on a per-square foot basis compared to sales from just before the pandemic, the Hoover Institution said.The Hoover report was authored by Lee Ohanian a senior fellow at the institution.The report's finding noted the former Union Bank building, located in the center of San Francisco financial district, was auctioned off last week for $65 million — 75% less on a per-square-foot basis than comparable building sales just prior to the pandemic.Ohanian called it "devastating news" for the city since the auction price provides a new market rate benchmark for setting the price...

San Francisco's drug overdose crisis is 'out of control,'.. Fentanyl and other drugs kill one person every 10 hours . ... San Francisco saw a staggering 41 percent surge in the number of drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year. ... That amounts to one overdose death every 10 hours in a city that has seen its reputation as a coastal gem ravaged by worsening crime, drugs, and, homelessness rates, even as it remains home to tech billionaires. The overdose victims were disproportionately black and Latino men ... Fentanyl, a potent synthetic...

Miami's Mayor Francis Suarez (R) this week urged Elon Musk to relocate Twitter's headquarters from San Francisco to his city.Driving the news: "[Elon Musk] it's TIME to move @twitter headquarters to Miami. It's not about politics, it's about the soul of our country," Suarez tweeted.The invitation comes after Musk expressed frustrations over San Fransisco, where Twitter is headquartered, after city officials started investigating reports that the social media giant had set up sleeping quarters for employees."So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities @LondonBreed!?"...

San Francisco Unified school board commissioner Ann Hsu, who was widely condemned for racist comments she made earlier this year, has lost her seat to challenger Alida Fisher. Though previously Hsu was in third place in the Board of Education race — for three open seats — she dropped to fourth place on Monday, and never recovered. As of Thursday, Hsu had no viable path to win. Hsu has 17.14% of the vote, with challenger Alida Fisher surpassing her at 17.75%. Fisher is leading Hsu by 4,054 votes — an insurmountable lead considering the 800 ballots left to count by...

... “With talk of layoffs right now, including at companies like Twitter, a reminder that the City and County of San Francisco is hiring,” Breed stated on the platform run by Musk since last week. “With over 4,500 vacancies, we are ready to help sign people up.” Breed also included a link to get people started on a job application. “We have a lot of talent in our community,” Breed stated. “This city has good jobs that can transition easily from the private sector, such as analysts, IT, and engineering. But we also have vacancies in transit operations, public safety,...