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San Francisco Officials announced last Thursday that the city had discovered numerous secret casinos and casinos posing as convenience stores, all located in a notorious downtown area long associated with illicit activity and homelessness.
At least nine such dens have been shut down or prosecuted in the past 18 months in the Tenderloin, City Attorney David Chiu said.
He said the stores engaged in a range of illegal activities, including gambling operations, selling illegal drugs, possessing firearms, dealing in stolen goods and violating city rules. night safety ordinancewhich prohibits stores from operating late at night to discourage late-night criminal activity.
“These convenience stores were magnets for drug activityand, in some cases, the stores themselves sold illegal drugs,” said City Prosecutor Chiu.
A homeless person sleeps on the sidewalk in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States, Thursday, April 14, 2022. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
According to the announcement, the stores allegedly housed illegal gambling operations, with police seizing numerous slot machines, up to 11 in one location, as well as money counting machines. Law enforcement reportedly seized large sums of cash, including more than $17,000, from a store.
During a search, officers found methamphetamine hidden under a shelf. Chiu said other seizures uncovered cannabis, vape cartridges and hundreds of glass pipes and Brillo pads, items commonly used for smoking methamphetamine and crack cocaine.
Large weapons were also found at the scene, including a firearm with a loaded magazinea high-capacity Glock magazine, two additional pistol magazines, and other ammunition.
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Homeless people use illegal drugs at an encampment along Willow St. in the downtown Tenderloin neighborhood on Thursday, February 24, 2022 in San Francisco, California. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Authorities said the convenience stores were used to fence stolen property. Officers allegedly seized merchandise still bearing their original price tags from major retailers such as Walgreens, Sephora, CVS and Target. The specific contraband included cigarettes originating from out of state and 17 stolen iPhones displayed for sale.
Chiu touted the Night Safety Ordinance, a legislative measure passed in 2024 as part of a two-year pilot program aimed at disrupting illegal activity. He said he was now seeking to expand curfews to further combat crime in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, a densely populated area known for its nightlife, tech offices and history of crime and homelessness.
At the intersection of Leavenworth and Golden Gate streets, people all walk to work and hang out in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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“Most businesses contribute positively to our neighborhoods, but a handful of late-night retail establishments, like the ones we have closed, attract significant criminal activity,” he said. “The Night Safety Ordinance has been helpful in putting these stores on our radar and giving us additional tools to shut down problem businesses.”
Supervisor Matt Dorsey said he hopes neighborhoods will eventually become “a less welcoming environment for public drug use, drug dealing and all the lawlessness caused by drugs, including illegal fence operations that fuel rampant drug use.”
