Tag: san francisco

California state senator Scott Wiener praises street fair where men openly pee on each other in kiddie pools

On Sunday, the infamous Folsom Street Fair took place in San Francisco, with the kink festival celebrating its 40th year.

California state Senator Scott Wiener, who has been photographed at the event in previous years, applauded the day as “one of the best days of the year in San Francisco.”

“We kicked it off with the amazing Donna Sachet’s 25th annual Folsom Leather Brunch. I’m so grateful to Donna & all of the kick *ss community leaders who make our city a better place,” Wiener wrote on X, posting photos of himself alongside a drag queen who was holding a California Senate certificate of recognition.

Folsom Street describes itself as “committed to cultivating a safe, open, and inclusive environment for the kink, leather, and alternative sexuality communities while centering equity for BIPOC and LGBTQA2I+ people in our work. We are rooted historically in the fight against gentrification and displacement both here in San Francisco, on unceded Ohlone land, and worldwide.”

Photos and videos of the event circulating on social media show men dressed in fetish attire openly participating in sexual acts on the public street.

One photo shows two men sitting in a kiddie pool while another standing along the side pees into it.

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San Francisco Drug Crisis: Feds Plan To Ramp Up Prosecutions

Federal prosecutors are planning to take a more aggressive approach to charging suspected drug dealers in San Francisco as the city grapples with record-high overdoses, according to sources familiar with the new plan.

Exact details are being held close to the vest, but officials for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, the Office of Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Police Department have been meeting for weeks in preparation of an official rollout that is expected to be formally announced in the next month. 

Abraham Simmons, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, told The Standard that the plan is to prosecute more drug-dealing cases in federal court, describing it as the result of  intense coordination between local and federal officials.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Simmons said. 

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Injured person reportedly dies after Cruise cars block first responders

On Aug. 14, two stalled Cruise vehicles delayed an ambulance from leaving the scene of a crash in which a driver had hit a pedestrian with their car, according to reports from the San Francisco Fire Department. The pedestrian later died of their injuries, which first responders linked to the delay in getting them to the hospital. 

“The fact that Cruise autonomous vehicles continue to block ingress and egress to critical 911 calls is unacceptable,” one emergency responder wrote in a report. Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo countered that one of the cars cleared the scene and that traffic to the right of it remained unblocked. “The ambulance behind the AV had a clear path to pass the AV as other vehicles, including another ambulance, proceeded to do,” she wrote in a statement to SFGATE. 

According to several reports written by first responders, first obtained by Forbes, emergency personnel arrived at Seventh Street and Harrison in SoMa and began treating a “critically injured” pedestrian who had been struck by a car. The patient was quickly loaded into an ambulance, but the ambulance driver was unable to immediately leave the scene, according to two reports written by members of the ambulance team.

Two autonomous Cruise vehicles and an empty San Francisco police vehicle were blocking the only exits from the scene, according to one of the reports, forcing the ambulance to wait while first responders attempted to manually move the Cruise vehicles or locate an officer who could move the police car. 

Collectively, these interferences “contributed to a poor patient outcome, delaying the definitive care required in severe trauma cases,” according to one of the reports. The patient reportedly died of their injuries approximately 30 minutes after arriving at San Francisco General Hospital.

SFFD representatives did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s request for comment. 

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Armed with traffic cones, protesters are immobilizing driverless cars

Two people dressed in dark colors and wearing masks dart into a busy street on a hill in San Francisco. One of them hauls a big orange traffic cone. They sprint toward a driverless car and quickly set the cone on the hood.

The vehicle’s side lights burst on and start flashing orange. And then, it sits there immobile.

“All right, looks good,” one of them says after making sure no one is inside. “Let’s get out of here.” They hop on e-bikes and pedal off.

All it takes to render the technology-packed self-driving car inoperable is a traffic cone. If all goes according to plan, it will stay there, frozen, until someone comes and removes it.

An anonymous activist group called Safe Street Rebel is responsible for this so-called coning incident and dozens of others over the past few months. The group’s goal is to incapacitate the driverless cars roaming San Francisco’s streets as a protest against the city being used as a testing ground for this emerging technology.

Over the past couple of years, driverless cars have become ubiquitous throughout San Francisco. It began with human safety drivers on board who were there to make sure everything ran smoothly. And then, many cars started operating with no humans at all.

They’re mostly run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet. Both companies have poured billions of dollars into developing these autonomous vehicles. Neither Cruise nor Waymo responded to questions about why the cars can be disabled by traffic cones.

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Shadowy group grabs 52 thousand acres near San Francisco – rumors swirling mysterious new city is about to be built…

Something very mysterious is unfolding in the Bay Area — Solano County, to be exact. The whispers around town are growing louder about a shadowy buyer who has gobbled up a whopping 52 thousand acres. Locals are abuzz after receiving surveys that are asking their thoughts on a “new city with tens of thousands of new homes.” Officials have verified the authenticity of these push polls that could be the very first glimpse into the secretive plans of a mysterious group called “Flannery Associates” and their new vision for a Bay Area empire. So, who is this group and what are they hiding? What grand designs are lurking in the shadows?

SF Gate:

The group, which incorporated in Delaware, where it is not required to name the people behind the business, has been the subject of speculation and even a possible government probe. Starting in 2018, Flannery began purchasing parcels of land from Fairfield to Rio Vista. (One of its first purchases was near Flannery Road in Rio Vista, possibly giving the group its name.) By its own admission, Flannery paid over the market rate to acquire that land, but in the years since, nothing has been developed on it. The group is now the largest landowner in the county.

The clandestine nature of the purchases — and the fact that Flannery’s properties now flank three sides of Travis Air Force Base — led to concerns about national security. Rep. Mike Thompson, whose district includes parts of Solano County, told SFGATE last week he has been “pushing” the Treasury Department, the Department of Defense and the FBI to investigate the acquisitions.

Screenshots of the survey reviewed by SFGATE show an extensive market research campaign. It starts by informing recipients that they will be weighing in on “a description of an initiative that might be on the ballot in Solano County next year” regarding a new development in eastern Solano County.

“This project would include a new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over ten thousand acres of new parks and open space,” the survey continues.

Could this be one of those new “15 minute cities” we’ve all heard so much about? Since the surveys have been distributed through a survey site, the identity of those behind it remains a mystery, fueling intense speculation about their actual plans.

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SFO United Staff Accused of Stealing Marijuana From Checked Bags

A group of United Airlines employees stole marijuana from checked luggage at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) for years, according to federal prosecutors. The Justice Department charged two baggage handlers on June 9 with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance for their role in the alleged scheme.

The employees, Joel Lamont Dunn and Adrian Webb, allegedly enlisted at least three other airport workers to help them snatch the cannabis, load it into 15-20 gallon trash bags and then put it in their personal vehicles, according to court filings.

The attorneys for Dunn and Webb did not reply to requests for comment by publication time.

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S.F. Mayor Breed defends controversial move to arrest drug users: ‘You’ve never lived in it’

Mayor London Breed fiercely defended her controversial policy to arrest and detain drug users to get them into treatment against criticism from Supervisor Dean Preston on Tuesday, calling him a “white man who’s talking about Black and brown people as if you’re the savior.” 

Breed has directed the Police Department to use public intoxication laws to arrest people who are high on drugs, detain them to sober up in jail and then offer them services. So far, officers have cited or arrested 38 people under the so-called “Intoxication Detention Program,” 12 of whom already had arrest warrants issued against them, she said during the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. Breed said none accepted drug treatment upon release. 

Preston pushed back on the approach Tuesday. He pointed out that Breed approved her health department’s overdose prevention plan in September that said Black, brown and Indigenous people continue to be impacted by “the racism and criminalization that have been the hallmark of federal U.S. drug policy for the past several decades.” 

The plan says “punitive policies have not been shown to be effective at reducing overdose deaths, while incarceration is known to significantly increase risk of dying of drug overdose” and cites a study demonstrating an increased risk of fatal overdose after incarceration. 

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San Francisco mayor asks for $63 million more for police amid crime wave

San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s budget request for the upcoming 2023-24 fiscal year calls for a $63 million increase in spending for the police compared to the previous one.

Breed’s requested budget for the upcoming fiscal year is $14.6 billion, a record high for both San Francisco county and the city. The $63 million increase marks a 9% increase from what police would get from the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The requested budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year will likewise see police receive a higher amount than the previous fiscal year, going up by $11 million. In total, police would receive $787.9 million under Breed’s requested fiscal budget.

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San Francisco Repeals Boycott of Conservative States; California May Follow

San Francisco repealed its boycott of conservative states over legislation on social issues on Tuesday because the boycott did not work and raised costs for the city. California may also soon repeal a similar boycott law.

As Breitbart News reported in February, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors decided to reconsider an ordinance passed in 2016 that banned city-funded travel to states that had passed laws like transgender bathroom ordinances. The ordinance also banned contracting with companies headquartered in those states. The boycott eventually expanded to include states that passed voter integrity laws and abortion restrictions.

But over time, the boycott failed to deter such laws, and raised the city’s contracting costs by 10% to 20%.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

Supervisors rolled back the entire law in a 7-4 vote just one month after the board agreed to exempt construction contracts from the boycott. Mayor London Breed has already said she supports repealing or reforming the underlying law.

“It’s not achieving the goal we want to achieve,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who sponsored the legislation that repealed the whole boycott. “It is making our government less efficient.”

As Breitbart News noted last month, California is also reconsidering its ban on state-funded travel to conservative states — a ban that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has repeatedly flouted by vacationing in such states or by visiting them to campaign against their laws and policies.

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The Curious Case of “Blinky” the San Francisco UFO

The history of ufology is filled with examples of curious sightings by one or two people that soon fade from memory. But then there are the cases where so many people see the same thing that they earn a nickname and frequently show up in the lore. Many are familiar with the tales of Charlie Red Star in Canada. Stories of the famous “Flying V” in New York’s Hudson Valley have been passed down among local inhabitants. 

Less well-known but perhaps equally interesting was a series of mass sightings that took place in San Francisco, California in February of 1953. Somewhat ironically, the exact date of the largest sighting was Friday the 13th. For a few days prior, local residents had been calling in reports of a glowing “bulb” or “ball” in the sky that would show up in various locations. It reportedly shifted in color from amber to silver or white and would “turn off” and then back on again. Some of the locals had taken to calling it “Blinky.” But in the late afternoon of the 13th, four Civil Defense Ground Observer Corpsmen stationed on top of Mt. Sutro outside the city would see the same thing approaching from the ocean and passing over their outpost. They later reported that it made a “deep throbbing sound.”

They would be far from the only ones because Blinky seemed intent on putting on a show. A toll collector named Fred Peterson on the Golden Gate Bridge reported seeing it at 5:35 pm. Two police officers driving in separate cars saw it, providing almost identical descriptions. Calls were coming in to the police and various radio stations in large numbers. The next day, the San Francisco Examiner ran a story about it on page 1. (Continued on page 7.) The editors’ description of the UFO’s antics was vivid.

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