San Francisco, CA
WEEKEND Sports stars slam San Francisco over crime, homelessness – Washington Examiner
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco‘s bad rap as a city overrun with criminals, addicts, and the homeless has led to big business, residents, and tourists looking for the exit ramp.
Now, its lengthy list of problems is being blamed for driving away professional athletes considering signing with the city’s professional sports teams.
The Northern California hub has been getting hammered by former NBA star-turned-sportscaster Charles Barkley who has been asked to rein in his smack talk but has refused to pull punches about the conditions. Barkley, never one to be shy about his opinion, recently went on an anti-San Francisco rant after it was announced the city would host the NBA All-Star Game in 2025.
“Hey Reggie, if you had a chance to be in the cold [in Indianapolis] or be around a bunch of homeless crooks in San Francisco, which would you take?” Barkley asked Indiana Pacers legend Reggie Miller, who was announcing the game with him on TNT.
When commentator Taylor Rooks said off-camera, “We love San Francisco,” Barkley shot back, “No, we don’t,” prompting a back-and-forth with Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green about safety in the city. When Green said anyone could walk around unharmed on the city streets, Barkley sarcastically agreed, saying the statement was true as long as the person was wearing “a bulletproof vest.”
It wasn’t the first time Barkley has gone after San Francisco.
When Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals between the Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks was delayed in 2022 due to a leak from the roof of the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Barkley claimed, “You know the bad thing about all this rain? It’s not raining in San Francisco to clean up all those dirty-ass streets they got there … all that dirtiness and homelessness, y’all, man, y’all gotta clean that off the streets.”
But it’s not just Barkley who has a problem with San Francisco.
Former San Francisco Giants star catcher Buster Posey, who is now a member of the Giant’s ownership group, raised eyebrows when he claimed baseball phenom Shohei Ohtani might have chosen the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Giants because of the city’s drug and crime problem. He claimed in an interview with The Athletic that safety is among the top concerns free agents consider before signing.
“Something I think is noteworthy, something that unfortunately keeps popping up from players and even the players’ wives, is there’s a bit of an uneasiness with the city itself, as far as the state of the city, with crime, with drugs,” Posey said. “Whether that’s all completely fair or not, perception is reality. It’s a frustrating cycle, I think, and not just with baseball. Baseball is secondary to life and the important things in life. But as far as a free-agent pursuit goes, I have seen that it does affect things.”
While there are some notorious parts of San Francisco like the Tenderloin district, the area around Oracle Park, where the Giants play, is among the safest in the city. It’s within walking distance of luxury 5-star hotels, boutiques, and upscale restaurants and breweries. There is also plenty of public transportation and for the most part is well lit.
Despite the high-profile criticism, more and more people are coming to the city’s defense.
Infielder Matt Chapman signed a three-year, $54 million deal with the Giants this month and said he purposely “chose to come [to San Francisco.]”
“I think everybody’s different, everybody has different things that matter to them, but I’m from California,” he said. “I played in the Bay Area. I’m comfortable here. And people say what they say, but I think at the end of the day when you look at the franchise, they want to win.”
Chapman added that he doesn’t “see why people wouldn’t want to come here” and that “a lot of people have reached out and said they want to come play here and told me that.”
In December, the Giants signed South Korean outfielder Jung Hoo Lee. His agent, Scott Boras, also pushed back on claims that athletes were keeping away from San Francisco.
“There are issues including homelessness near the ballpark in San Diego, in downtown L.A,” Boras told NBC Sports. “To identify that only with San Francisco is really unfair. In any of the major cities, we’ve got issues. Chicago, New York, whatever. The players’ major focus is the structure of the organization and winning and competing. The biggest issue the Giants have is the fact that the Dodgers are getting better. Players want to know if they come here, will they be able to compete with the Dodgers? And now Arizona. That’s the real major question that San Francisco has to answer.”
City leaders have also come to San Francisco’s defense.
Democratic mayoral candidate Ahsha Safai told SFGATE that while the city was solid, it still has room to improve, like the three teams Barkley played for during his 16 years in the NBA.
“We have the talent, we have the desire — we just need a new head coach to lead our city!” Safai said.
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Kyle Smeallie, chief of staff to District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, offered up what he thought set Barkley off about San Francisco in the first place.
“Our city rules — big baby Barkley is just mad he never got a ring,” Smeallie said, adding that the Warriors have seven NBA championships under their belt.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — ABC7 Eyewitness News got a sneak peak as crews put the finishing touches on the floats you’ll see at Saturday’s San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade.
Since it’s the year of the fire horse, you’ll see a lot of horses and fire symbolism on the floats, housed at Pier 19.
“So Year of the Horse, it’s energy, it’s passion, it’s momentum so a lot of things that we’re really hoping to embody in the new year,” said Stephanie Mufson, owner of San Francisco-based The Parade Guys, which designs and constructs the floats.
She said they’ve been building them for about three months, with the designs starting in November.
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“We’re in the home stretch,” she said. “We’ve got a couple of days left and we’ve got a nice little team that’s cranking out all the finishing work that needs to go into it.”
Derrick Shavers was sanding some wood that will be painted and become cherry blossom trees on a float.
“It’s exciting,” Shavers said. “I look forward to coming every year and just creating and making things shine and sparkle.”
Bon was painting mountains for a float, making sure everything is perfect in time for the parade.
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“It’s one of the few parades that actually happens at night still,” Bon said. “So we got to make sure all the lighting is in check, and people are safe on the float. It’s all in the details, just for it to walk by you for 10 seconds.”
Ten seconds that bring so much joy to those watching the parade.
Here’s how you can watch the parade on ABC7 Eyewitness News on Saturday, March 7.
Coverage starts at 5 p.m. wherever you stream ABC7.
SF Chinese New Year Parade 2026: How to watch ABC7 Eyewitness News live coverage
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live
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San Francisco, CA
Celebrated San Francisco historic landmark, the Huntington Hotel officially reopens
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — First opened as apartments in 1922 and converted into a hotel two years later, the Huntington was once a playground for socialites and Hollywood stars.
It shut its doors in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and remained shuttered until this week, following new owners and a million-dollar, top-to-bottom renovation.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for The Huntington Hotel in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood Monday.
The hotel officially reopened on Sunday.
Mayor Daniel Lurie attended the celebration for the hotel on California Street.
“This is another sign that San Francisco is on the rise, when you have major institutions and major hotels reopening,” Lurie said. “We’re seeing it in Union Square. We’re seeing it now up here on Nob Hill. This is an exciting moment for San Francisco.”
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The hotel, known for its iconic sign, will be restoring the landmark sign to its former glory.
Many say it’s a symbol of what’s going on in San Francisco.
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“It came to symbolize San Francisco’s decline during COVID when it shut and it now, I think, symbolizes San Francisco’s rebirth,” said Greg Flynn, Flynn Group Founder, Chairman, and CEO. “It’s sort of the perfect symbol of it because it’s coming back better than it ever was.”
Alex Bastian, President and CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, said hotel occupancy rates are up in 2024.
“Our data team crunched the numbers, and the four-week rolling hotel occupancy rate for San Francisco Bay Area hotels is 55.1 percent as of January 17 of this year. Compare that to January 17 of 2021, during the pandemi,c when it was 13.1 percent.”
Of course, the Super Bowl helped.
Here’s what Super Bowl LX visitors are saying about San Francisco
“There’s no marketing campaign better than what we achieved as San Franciscans,” Bastian said. “The mayor and his team really elevated the game. They did an incredible job. We are so fortunate, as a city, because so many came here and they left their hearts here in San Francisco.”
Eyewitness News wasn’t allowed to gather video of the hotel’s features, but the hotel provided renderings of a sample room.
Matthew de Quillien, The Huntington Hotel General Manager, said the hotel has 143 rooms, many of them suites. Also, the Nob Hill Spa, Arabella’s Cocktail Salo,n and a reopening of The Big Four Restaurant, featuring its famous chicken pot pie.
“Our owner was able to find the original recipe from the 70’s and we remastered it and we’re … serving it to our guests,” de Quillien said.
He said rates range from $600 a night to $7,000 a night for its Presidential suite.
The restaurant opens to the public on March 17.
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live
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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Walk SF and Families for Safe Streets held a vigil Monday evening to honor a 2-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a driver Friday night in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood.
The crash happened just before 9 p.m. at Fourth and Channel streets near Oracle Park. Police said the child’s mother was also injured and taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The driver remained at the scene, and authorities said drugs or alcohol are not believed to be factors.
Community heartbroken
Community members gathered at the intersection Monday to light candles and lay flowers. Among them was the Howard family.
“We’re just heartbroken and sad,” said Hidelisa Howard.
“I was thinking about heartbroken parents, someone who cannot get their daughter back,” said John Howard.
The intersection is designated as part of San Francisco’s 2022 High Injury Network, identifying streets with the highest concentration of severe and fatal traffic crashes. Speed cameras were recently installed in the surrounding neighborhood.
Jodie Medeiros, executive director of Walk SF, called the crash a tragedy, noting a previous fatal collision involving a child at Fourth and King streets several years ago.
Traffic intensifies
Parents in the area said traffic has intensified with nearby events and development.
“We love having people here in the neighborhood, and it’s brought a lot of life to the area,” said Hidelisa Howard, who lives nearby. “But at the same time, we have people coming in from out of the area. They’re not familiar with the streets, they’re running the lights, they’re running the crosswalks.”
District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey said the intersection has been problematic.
“Sometimes people go too fast. I don’t know that this was the issue here, but we need to do everything we can to make our neighborhoods and our streets safer,” Dorsey said.
On Monday, crews with the SFMTA repainted crosswalks and re-timed traffic signals at the intersection.
“It just feels like there’s so many young children in this neighborhood that there should be improvements made to the way that the traffic flows around here,” said Aanisha Jain, a San Francisco resident.
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