Some joker with a tent encampment in the Inner Richmond has posted hand-scrawled signs reading “Free fentanyl 4 new users,” and “Meth for stolen items!” across the street from a school and a church. Oh, and he's a registered sex offender, and he claims he's not joking.
The Inner Richmond corner of Geary Boulevard and Ninth Avenue is home to the Stella Maris Academy, a K-8 Catholic school. Next to that is the Star of the Sea Church, and a block away, the Inner Richmond branch of the SF Public Library.
But Ninth Avenue has also seen a burgeoning encampment problem. And these two matters collide, as the Chronicle reports that an unsheltered guy with an encampment at that corner has posted provocative signs saying “Free fentanyl 4 new users,” and “Meth for stolen items!”
This is a sign at the encampment we regularly clean around on 9th Ave and Geary, right next to the Richmond Library.
— Refuse Refuse San Francisco (@RefuseRefuseSF) October 16, 2023
Can anyone justify how we accept this as normal and acceptable? pic.twitter.com/uCRhpom4Tp
This first bubbled into public awareness when the volunteer trash pick-up organization Refuse Refuse called it out in the above tweet Sunday night. KPIX’s Betty Yu then posted a video of the encampment signs Monday night, video which was quickly swiped and reused by Elon Musk’s blue check brigade. By Wednesday, the Chronicle had gone out and talked to this character, and he claimed he absolutely was handing out fentanyl and trading meth for stolen items.
Spotted across from a school on 9th at Geary in the Inner Richmond in San Francisco. “Meth for stolen items” and “free fentanyl 4 new users” @KPIXtv pic.twitter.com/YFiWeh61bQ
— Betty Yu (@bett_yu) October 17, 2023
“It’s not a joke,” the man, Joseph Adam Moore, told the Chronicle. He also taunted the neighbors who complain, saying “I’m like Bugs Bunny, when Elmer Fudd shows up to shoot him in the face with a shotgun.”
And as the Chron notes, Moore is also a registered sex offender. The state sex offender database, which requires you to enter the name before seeing the results, shows Moore has a 1997 conviction for "Lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age."
This has been brought to the attention of the district’s supervisor Connie Chan. Her office said in a statement to the Chronicle that she’s reached out to the district's police station “about the situation which indicat[es] possible drug sales.” Her office added they were working with the SF homeless outreach team to get more services and shelter for people on Ninth Avenue.
The “free fentanyl” sign is pretty brazen, but Moore’s encampment has apparently caused other considerable problems in the past. According to the Chronicle, the encampment once contained a half-dozen residents, who’d spread out all over the sidewalk with “barbecues, a beach umbrella, and even a dune buggy that sat on the pavement.”
Image: @RefuseRefuseSF via Twitter
