I wanted to go out later in the afternoon today so I could get a sense of when, or if, the west side of Mission Street transitioned from a sidewalk vending market to mayhem. I also wanted to check myself. Had I really seen every fourth or fifth person with drug paraphernalia late Saturday or was I just flummoxed by the amount of drug use I had seen?
I arrived around 3:30 p.m. Sunday and the west side of Mission Street was booming — still a lot of vending, but a fair amount of drug paraphernalia in open display. This time, I counted: Eight pipes out, three pieces of foil in use, one young man bent over smoking. It wasn’t a great scene for the children who live in La Fenix to witness, but to be fair, the vendors immediately in front of the building only seemed to be vending: used clothing, eggs and street food.
At one point, a police SUV pulled up on the west side near 16th Street. There had been a small incident and three officers interviewed one man. The mere presence of the police SUV prompted some vendors and those standing nearby to move further north…