Aggressive Panhandlers Blamed for San Francisco's Slipping Tourism Ranking

ranking may or may not be based on panhandlers, and the problem may not be a new one, but aggressive panhandlers are still a major problem in this city.  its time we stopped coddling people under the guise of "homeless rights" and enforce the law.  no one should have to be harassed multiple times per day simply because they work/live in an area that panhandlers have decided to make their offices.

at least this bum is an entrepreneur , as opposed to the  white middle class art history majors who are stinking up the park

I LIKE THIS STORY IT VALIDATES MY BUTTHURT FEELINGS LOL SF SUCKS LOL

Well there was that well documented case of aggressive panhandling in the Mid-Market area, oh wait, that was Twitter. Never mind.

Mattier and Ross might be the worst "investigative" reporters at any newspaper in the country. Instead of actually "investigating" why Sf "dropped" all the way to number 2 (which, you know, still puts it ahead of NYC, DC, Miami, etc), they call up the head of the tourist bureau for his opinion. Why didn't they call up any of the survey respondents? Or Conde Naste? Or do anything that would resemble something besides throwing red meat to the mouth breathing denizens of SF Gate comment boards?

I love SF. Always will. But part of the reason that I moved to NYC was the wacked out lefty political scene that facilitates the homeless/panhandling problem. Regardless, Charleston???? No way . . .

Do people crap on sidewalks out there?

Charleston really in a very beautiful city. But, given that it's a part of the United States, and that the economy has been kinda lousy lately, I would bet there are some folks living on the streets. And I bet some of them actually need to perform some basic bodily functions every once in a while. And I bet sometimes they have an issue finding an indoor toilet. So yeah, I bet there is some shit on the sidewalk in Charleston.

I meant NYC not Charleston. I find myself looking where I walk these days so as to avoid stepping on human feces. Who's to blame? The city for letting it happen or the one who passes it. Either way, it's uncivilized, yes?  But does it happen in most urban areas?

Seriously, the homeless are fewer and far between here in NYC. And the ones I do see are far less wacked out. And no, I have yet to see someone: crap on the sidewalk or smoke crack in the wide open (saw it ALL THE TIME while I lived in the Lower Haight/Alamo Sq)

I'd like to point out that the Conde Nast Traveler survey simply showed that S.F. had slipped in the "friendliness" department, and said nothing specific about the homeless or panhandlers. That was D'Allessandro using the survey result as a reason to complain about panhandlers, which he clearly thinks are a problem.

Lack of "friendliness"?? I think Conde Nast simply looked at the comments section on sfgate and found how spiteful some people are.

But let's not forget SFGate's top commenter lives in Texas.

Let's not go too crazy here. SF is still #2.

Yeah, but why pass up an opportunity to hate on panhandlers and/or use it to push a political agenda? Overreaction is an American fucking pastime.

Let's go down that list. Find the other cities that did not make #1 based on some bogus poll, and blame poor people.

Honestly, it's prolly their fault.

How has panhandling changed in the past year? We've always had this problem. This is just a bogus poll.

Hey! Stop using common sense! Panhandling has gotten more aggressive and you know it. We don't need scientific data backing it up. It's true because I said, "you know it."

shush... don't be bringing #OccupySF into this discussion.

...or SFO, the economy, hotel rates, weather, taxis, etc,

I don't like the fact that people still think the homeless problem and the panhandling problem are one and the same. They're linked, sure but a LOT of the folks asking for money in the heavily trafficked tourist areas are just panhandlers. In fact those folks are probably the most successful because they're clean, well dressed and mostly coherent.

I think it's time we go for the NYC-style "giant jar of money that goes to support organizations" model, at least around Union Square and the Wharf. These folks not only scare off tourists but they give the impression that we have tons of starving people on our streets which is not true at all. There's dozens if not hundreds of people in SF who have dedicated their lives to feeding people and hearing someone claim they haven't eaten in two days makes my blood boil. Could our services be improved? Sure, but they're there and they're better than almost anywhere else in the US. And if we direct handout money to support organizations instead of liquor stores/dealers they'll get even better.

Hate to break it to you, but those dudes with the giant jar of money on the NYC sidewalks are scam artists.

My experience in big cities the world over is you rarely see panhandlers outside of the US. 

Instead, you find people selling food, trinkets, even books right on the sidewalk.  Sure, they don't have permits and they probably don't pay taxes -- but neither do the panhandlers.

I wonder if we looked the other way more often for these types of quasi-legal street vendors if we'd get more of those and fewer panhandlers?

You've obviously never been to India

This is true.

Though when I was in Greece, almost all the "street people" were Indian.  They outnumbered the Gypsies 10-1.

Those street vendors are just as annoying.  I was in Rome this June and they were hyper agressive with laser pointers in peoples eyes, and these pig blob things they threw at the ground that splattered and then reformed to their original cartoon pig.  A single block usually involved swatting away 3 or 4 of them.  We don't need that either.

You can only have so many crackheads selling "trees" they made out of stolen copper wire.

The City already spends a huge amount of money -- 41% worth of the discretionary budget to be precise -- on non-profits to provide social services. 

By and large it's an unaccounted-for, massive waste. 

Check out this S.F. Weakly article.  And the figures I'm citing are in the the middle of page 2.

That's part of what pisses me off about our current situation, the fact that no matter how much money we spend there would still be tons of panhandlers and they'd still make people think we didn't have all these services in place.

Personally I'm more bothered by all these people who invade our bars on Friday and Saturday night, yell really loud at 2am and throw up on my doorstep.

Oh really, boo boo? Are those mean old bar people disrupting your precious sleep time?  Poor little eric-weric--they should pass a law that says no more mean bar invaders after 10:30pm so you can say nite-nite and get some rest with your woobie.

Not asking for a law to be passed, but a coupon for earplugs would be welcome!

So they built the pesky bars after you moved in, you say?

I never said that.  And for the record, it's not the bars that bother me.  In fact, I love the bars!

It's the douchey bar patrons who don't know how to behave in a city that are the problem.

that's pretty lame and uptight of you to say. people are out having fun on vacation. you get to live in sf every day, so i wouldn't be all boo hoo about it.

HOLD MY HAIR

Tourists, apparently.

This. 95% of Americans couldn't identify fucking Charleston on a map, let alone non-Americans.  Sounds to me like somebody at Conde Nast is getting courtesy handies from Charleston's mayor.

Best I heard about this is SF is #2 cause it smells like #2

Nope its the poo everywhere and the general nut-jobs roaming the streets , Oh maybe its just too expensive.....

Funny, I didn't think you got out much.

The aggressive panhandlers aren't helping. I've seen my share of panhandlers displaying the "omg, WHY ISNT THIS WORKING?!?" freakout reaction to my usual polite blowoff.