San Francisco Business Owners Threaten to Withhold Taxes if Something Isn’t Done About Crime and Homeless Population

Americans sticking up for themselves and their livelihoods: you love to see it.

Business owners in San Francisco are banding together to try to get the government to do their job.

Imagine that. . .

According to the Daily Caller:

A group of San Francisco shops in the Castro District are threatening to boycott the city’s alleged inability to address the spike in crime by refusing to pay their taxes, according to reports

The Castro Merchants Association sent a letter to San Francisco city officials warning that, should the city fail to address the increase in burglaries, vandalism, homeless encampments in front of shops and residences, and individuals with mental illnesses, then they won’t pay taxes, KTVU reported.

Co-president of the Castro Merchants Association and owner of Flore Dispensary and Cafe Flore, Terrance Alan, said several shops have been vandalized while homeless individuals have made it difficult for local businesses to run properly, according to the report.

“Every day we wake up and have to help people on the street. We have to clean up feces on the street. We have to clear our people from doorways, so we can open our businesses. It’s not fair,” Alan said.

The Castro Merchants Association has given the city of San Francisco a set of requests, including setting aside 35 shelter beds for homeless individuals in the Castro District who need shelter; creating a plan to address giving mental health services to individuals who have rejected help, while also ensuring police are enforcing laws and devising plans for those who refuse treatment, KTVU reported.

The city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said Tuesday that they cannot reserve shelter beds for one single neighborhood, but they are in the process of expanding their housing units, according to KTVU.

The Castro Merchants Association previously complained about the vandalism in February 2021, saying business owners had reported 72 incidents of vandalism totaling more than $135,472 in damages, according to Hoodline.

“Elections have consequences” has become somewhat of a cliché. These, however, are the policies that serve as a stark warning for those who don’t take voting seriously.

The best the local government in SF can offer homeless drug addicts is access to clean needles. Violent criminals never face any real consequences, which means there’s nothing to serve as a deterrent against future lawlessness. The local government does nothing to address either of these issues with vigor, so law-abiding citizens are left to pick up the pieces on their own. Whether that will make a difference at the ballot box is hard to say.

You pay taxes with the understanding that the government will do its job. That it will help the homeless, who don’t deserve to OD in tents on the sidewalk. As a business owner, you should be able to expect that $900 worth of merchandise won’t be stolen without consequences, but local governments in major cities like SF, NYC, and LA have chosen to protect criminals over hard-working Americans.

And yet, rather than coming to the conclusion that these types of policies don’t work, people keep voting to implement them. Voters operate under the belief that it’s not the policies themselves that are terrible, it’s that the people implementing them aren’t doing it right. It’s the “maybe this time will be different” mentality that leads to the suffocation of a successful society.

The policies are broken. Let’s actually take the time to acknowledge what works and try doing that for a while, just to see what happens.