Mayor Daniel Lurie's Whac-a-Mole method of dealing with unsavory street conditions succeeded in shifting a bunch of drug activity to 16th and Mission last year, and now a crackdown there has done little to change things.A 90-day "surge" effort by the SFPD and other city agencies to address the chaot ic conditions in and around the 16th and Mission BART plazas comes to an end today. But how much has it accomplished?As the Chronicle reports, speaking to area residents and business owners, the city's efforts to regularly power-wash the plazas, crack down on illegal vending of mostly stolen goods, and arrest people for drug offenses have only managed to create temporary pauses in the street circus. And the same goes for the 24th Street BART plazas, which have been a magnet for illegal vending dating back years now.As Ryen Motzek, president of the Mission Merchants Association, tells the paper, "There’s been some changes, and then it goes back to the way it was. It’s not really sustainable."There has been ample media coverage of the uptick in drug activity and other crime around Mission Street between 15th and 17th streets, and in the alleys nearby, which coincided with an early 2025 crackdown that took place on Sixth Street, around Civic Center, and in the Tenderloin. That same period saw a brief moment when a surge of drug activity moved into Jefferson Square Park, which led to a February 2025 police raid that yielded 86 arrests — but, as we later learned, only one actual person charged with a felony drug offense, and he was acquitted.But Mission residents have seen much more sustained drug activity in the last 18 months, in areas like 16th and Mission which, even before police crackdowns in the Tenderloin last year, had been a magnet for crime.Civic Center, and the BART station there, have been notably much calmer and cleaner in the last year, as the Chronicle has previously celebrated. But that seems to have come at the expense of the next BART station plaza to the south, where much illegal vending and open-air drug activity persists.BART launched a series of "community-driven" workshops and meetings last fall to address the troubles at 16th and Mission, but residents and business owners have continued over the last year to flood the email inboxes of Supervisor Jackie Fielder and others with complaints about street conditions, as Fielder tells the Chronicle. The state of things in the area "just doesn’t seem to be moving upward in a consistent way," Fielder says, despite the city's efforts.And people living on the street in the are told the Chronicle that when the cops show up, they just shift over to the alleyways, or to "border zones" like under the Central Freeway.The SFPD has reportedly made or issued 481 arrests or citations during the 90-day surge effort, with the help of 28 patrol officers, and the department says that this staffing level is expected to continue. Additionally, under a new state law sponsored by state Senator Scott Wiener, police have issued over 500 notices and citations for illegal vending, with penalties going up for second citations.Much like Sixth Street and parts of the Tenderloin, the area around Mission and 16th is also home to single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotels, which is where many of the individuals who hang out on the sidewalks reside. Thus, efforts to "clean up" the area, as the city purports to do, are just effectively telling those people to go inside temporarily, and shooing those who don't live there to other corners for a time.Possibly, things will change when hundreds of new residents move in to the new housing complex that is rising behind the 16th and Mission BART plaza, which broke ground in April. That complex, the so-called "Marvel in the Mission," will ultimately have 382 below-market-rate units spread over 19 stories, about half of which will be supportive housing for the formerly homeless — and the latter are are bing constructed first, as Phase One of the project.Previously: Dozens of Unpermitted Mission District Vendors Cited, Nearly 400 Issued Warnings Under New Law ...read more read less