In SF’s Tenderloin, there’s a revolving door — of drug dealers, that is

When it comes to open drug dealing, it’s hard to beat San Francisco’s Tenderloin, where more than half of the city’s drug arrests occurred last year.

According to a recent report by the city’s budget and legislative analyst, 56% of the 883 people arrested or cited citywide for drug sales in fiscal year 2017-18 were busted in the Tenderloin. That’s by far the highest number of arrests among the city’s 10 police districts.

Just read the crime reports coming out of the SFPD’s Tenderloin Station.

• “A Tenderloin sergeant got in a long foot chase yesterday, with a fleeing drug dealer. The pursuit ended on the 400 Block of Turk St. … Booked possession for sale of 82 bindles of meth, cocaine, fentanyl. $249 also seized as evidence.”

• “This weekend 5 more dealers (all w/priors) are booked at CJ (County Jail) $1,416.00, cell phones, 250 bindles fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, meth seized.”

And on it goes.

“It comes to about 1½ arrests a day, but no one is saying, ‘Wow, we are doing a great job,’” district Supervisor Matt Haney said.

According to prosecutors interviewed in the budget analyst’s report, the Tenderloin is known to users and dealers throughout the Bay Area as a place to buy illegal drugs and sell stolen property.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Sharon Woo and Assistant District Attorney Thomas Ostly told the analyst that a high percentage of the drug activity in the Tenderloin, Mid-Market and South of Market neighborhoods is organized crime.

Prosecutors say the street sellers typically live in groups, outside of San Francisco, and are assigned specific locations controlled by two gangs.

The dealers work in shifts to keep their areas open 24 hours a day. Each shift is covered by a crew that varies with the demand.

Often, homeless addicts are employed as human storage lockers. The homeless addict stands nearby and holds the bulk of the drugs. When the dealer makes the sale, the addict hands the bindles to the buyer.

The idea is to limit the amount of drugs the gang members hold and thus limit the charges and the possible jail time they might face if arrested.

Law enforcement sources say one of the biggest operations involve Hondurans who control sales in the area bordered by Leavenworth, Geary, Polk and Mission streets.

“Despite what they’re up against, our officers are out there every day against the drug dealers,” Tenderloin Station Capt. Carl Fabbri said.

Arrests, however, are just the first step in a legal journey that often leads right back to the Tenderloin. Of the 883 drug sale arrests in fiscal 2017-18, 747 were forwarded to the district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors, however, say it takes an average of 244 days — about eight months — for a felony like selling drugs to make its way through the courts.

Often as not, the suspected dealers are released by a judge pending the outcome of their cases. And just as often, the dealers head back to the Tenderloin and start selling drugs again.

Of the 747 arrests referred to the D.A., 640 were prosecuted, while 107 were dropped for lack of evidence or some other reason.

Half are still making their way through the courts.

According to the analyst’s report, of the 173 convictions, 139 (80.3%) resulted in probation with some time served in county jail, and 32 (18.5%) resulted in longer sentencing to county jail.

Neither the D.A. nor the Sheriff’s Department had data on the actual time served.

Prosecutors, however, told the analyst that even with the convictions, the “current sentencing practices do not deter” sellers from returning to the same locations.

As a result “most of the people arrested or convicted get probation, which begs the question, ‘How we can make probation effective and not have these guys go right back on the street?’” Haney said.

Good question.

Haney recently held a Board of Supervisors hearing on the open drug dealing in his district that brought together nearly a dozen city and law enforcement departments, as well as community organizations. The hearing explored everything from police arrests to the needs for more drug treatment beds to systemic poverty.

But after hours of testimony, the only consensus was there is no easy answer.

“I’m not saying that people need to get a long-term prison sentence,” Haney said. “But each arrest costs us something like $10,000, so when we do arrest someone we should be smarter about what happens next.”

Meanwhile, the open drug dealing continues. And so do the police reports out of the Tenderloin.

• “Last night a team of Tenderloin cops shut down a crew … 256 bindles (almost four ounces) cocaine, meth, heroin, fentanyl, $2,184.00 seized.”