San Francisco Unveils New Safety Plan as Tourism Makes a Comeback

After a year where both COVID-19 and bad press about crime put big dents in tourism, San Francisco is striking back.

As tourism reemerges, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Police Department announced a new plan in hopes to keep residents and tourists safe.

The San Francisco Police Department's Tourism Deployment Plan "will provide high-visibility and welcome support to an economic sector that is vitally important to San Francisco as travelers worldwide emerge from COVID-19 lockdowns," a statement explained.

Mayor Breed said tourism has always been a "powerhouse" for the city's economy and having one of the highest vaccination rates in the country will help reopen the city and welcome tourists from around the world after a tough year.

"We have work to do to make sure that when people come to San Francisco and they visit our museums and they shop and they go to our restaurants and they go to see Hamilton at The Orpheum, that they feel safe," she said during a press conference.

As part of the new plan, San Francisco will make sure to have a "community policing strategy" at hand and will have more police officers paroling some of the most-visited areas in the city such as Union Square, Chinatown, Powell Street, Fisherman's Wharf, Haight Street, Golden Gate Park and more.

Surrounded by Police Officers, San Francisco Mayor London Breed says the key to bringing business and tourism back to SF:
“We don’t want people to commit crimes here. You will see more officers here, we want people to feel safe.” pic.twitter.com/ia5gmNxj6I

— scott budman (@scottbudman) July 19, 2021

Some business owners think this approach may protect them as well from robberies and assaults.

Karl Stuebe, co-owner of Home Coffee Roasters in Chinatown said there's been times when "people coming in here throwing stuff at us, hot water at us, stealing stuff, it's been very difficult."

He thinks more police officers will keep criminals away and attract more customers.

"We want to prevent these crimes from occurring, we want to let the people doing these crimes know that we're there," San Francisco Chief of Police Bill Scott said, "know that we're not gonna tolerate this nonsense, and we'll catch you."