Editordude: the following rant by a Comic-Con visitor was published as an op-ed in the San Diego U-T just recently and has made quite a stir about the conditions of the Gaslamp Quarter. Although an unsympathetic view of people experiencing homelessness in downtown, it does demonstrate what visitors and resident believe is a situation out of control.
By Damon Zwicker
Profound disappointment and outrage are the only words I can think of to describe the deplorable conditions in the Gaslamp Quarter, particularly around Fourth Avenue and E Street. As a visitor to San Diego as an employee of an event company tasked with installing experiential marketing events for Comic-Con San Diego, I was shocked, astonished and horrified by what I witnessed during my recent visit.
The streets are plagued by individuals evidently intoxicated, littered with glass pipes and needles. Sidewalks are covered in feces and urine, trash is strewn everywhere, and orange-vested city workers are reduced to pressure washing the streets and mopping the sidewalks in a futile attempt to maintain some semblance of cleanliness.
Adding to the horror, zombie-like people wander the streets in a drug-filled haze or stand doubled over at the waist, “nodding” for extended periods, completely oblivious to their surroundings. Is this the image of a world-class city?
These dangerous and unsanitary conditions are a disgrace, posing serious risks to both residents and tourists. The lack of effective, systemic problem-solving to address these issues is a glaring failure of leadership and governance. The city’s reputation is tarnished by the evident inability to manage and mitigate the rampant drug use and associated squalor that has taken over what should be a vibrant and welcoming area. To any and all visitors, I strongly advise staying away from the San Diego Gaslamp District for your own safety.
Mayor Todd Gloria and the people of San Diego should be ashamed of allowing such conditions to persist. It is clear that there is severe neglect in addressing the root causes of these problems and implementing sustainable solutions. The sight of people with substance use disorders openly using drugs and the pervasive filth on the streets speaks volumes about the city’s priorities and the effectiveness of its public health and safety strategies. These issues are not only a blight on the city’s image but also a significant public health crisis that demands immediate and robust intervention.
Police officers in patrol cars and on foot were either unable or unwilling to intervene in the open drug use happening along Fourth Avenue and continuing down E Street. The complete lack of response from law enforcement not only endangers the lives of those directly affected by the drug trade but also puts law-abiding citizens at significant risk. This neglect erodes the community’s trust in the Police Department’s ability to maintain public safety. It’s disheartening to think that those who are tasked with ensuring the safety and well-being of the area’s residents and visitors have become so desensitized to these conditions that they no longer recognize them as abnormal or urgent.
Adding to my dismay, when I asked a security guard doorman, “What’s up with all the open drug use and filth on the streets?” he responded with a resigned, “Welcome to San Diego! This is how it is now.” This response underscores a disturbing acceptance of these dire conditions, reflecting a community and city leadership that have either become desensitized to the decay and danger surrounding them or simply do not care.
The fact that such conditions are met with resignation rather than urgency speaks volumes about the systemic neglect and apathy that has allowed this situation to deteriorate to its current state.
I will actively discourage anyone I know from visiting this city until there is a significant and tangible improvement in these conditions. San Diego deserves better. Its residents and visitors deserve to walk through the streets without fear or disgust.
It’s time for the city’s leadership to take real, meaningful action to restore the Gaslamp Quarter to a place of pride, not a source of shame. This means investing in comprehensive drug rehabilitation programs, increasing the presence and effectiveness of law enforcement, and ensuring that public spaces are kept clean and safe for everyone. Only through dedicated and sustained efforts can San Diego hope to reclaim its reputation and ensure a better quality of life for all its inhabitants and visitors.
Zwicker is a project manager and lives in the San Fernando Valley.
There was a rebuttal to that in the UT as well.
Who could possible want to rebut this, other than maybe Todd Gloria? Allowing these conditions to continue is harmful to everyone involved.
Homeless advocates’ view:
This article is a must read for all San Diegans (and Americans). This is what a large city-suicide looks like…a la San Francisco.
San Diego’s homelessness catastrophe is not just limited to our front doorstep Gaslamp Quarter as noticed by thousands of recent Comic-Con attendees.
This crisis has proliferated throughout San Diego County, with few exceptions. Ineffective and incompetent elected leadership is the root of the problem. Ignore excuses claiming otherwise.
Please share this article far and wide — our fellow Americans need to know about the self-destruction happening in San Diego. So they hopefully won’t follow our example.
So based on that, you would support Larry Turner as mayor.
A new resident in our apartment complex is an SDPD officer. She acknowledges many of the things the author of this article states in terms of turning a blind eye. We did ask her why and she said the reasons are too long and complex and boring to go into. A for honesty.
As I’ve mentioned in earlier articles, some houseless individuals have been punched and beaten on a couple occasions in our alley by some fed up neighbors. No arrests. And this is Hillcrest of all places.
Yeah, hmmm, imagine adding density.
Mind you, this is a out-of towner here for CommieCon in a limited time passing judgement in a limited area. The rag supports by posting the article through the UT. Frank says city leadership is the root of the problem. No excuses, but this is everywhere, not just here. So don’t get tunnel vision.
The contrast of Mayor Toad and his building, mass transit, bike lane progressives seem stark against the forum here……..
the idea was to publish a platform run by progressives. And to reach out to other progressives and have discussions on important issues. Originally, we wanted to provide the San Diego scene with news and commentary from a distinctively progressive and grassroots perspective, and to also provide a forum for those views.
Just a step back to look at the view……a thousand points of truths…..
If I still lived in OB, I would vote for Turner.
Though I will always treasure my San Diego years, I am happy
in a calm and peaceful new place.
Gloria represents “the full catastrophe”.
San Diego leadership is living in ivory towers high above everyone The Mayor has been shown to misuse funds and direct funding without counsel approval in a recent audit. The city leadership hurts small businesses by taking away parking for bike lanes no one uses. The city leaders create issues that keeps getting our tax dollars used in lawsuits. The city leaders create laws to criminalize hard working citizens, yet turns a blind eye to blatant drug use on the streets. Explains why tourists aren’t spending as much here. Take away the vending, take away access to the local shops, take away the artisans and the performers, this is how you turn “America’s Finest City” into a “Rotten Whales Vagina!”
Yoga on the beach, Street Performers, Artists, Vendors, all things the city regulates and enforces on heavily.
Street Crimes, Drugs, Drug Dealers, Feces on the street, needles and litter everywhere, con artists and pickpockets, Police can’t do anything about it!
San Diego needs to wake up and get its priorities straight.
AMEN!
It truly is a disgrace to make everyone else suffer instead of dealing with it.
I whole heartedly agree with this visitor’s comments. I too am ashamed of what they city has become under the “leadership” of Todd Gloria. Under his leadership homelessness is rampant, streets are in the poorest condition I have seen them in since moving to San Diego in 1995, police are stretched thin, etc. Meanwhile, They are taking out parking spaces and traffic lanes to put in bike lanes and bus lanes that no one uses, advancing the trans agenda, and focused on DEI hires instead of ensuring that the city remains a welcoming and safe environment for ALL of it’s residents. Shame on Mayor Gloria and the rest of the city council for allowing this city to go down the tubes!
Here’s a U-T letter writer’s response:
Wow! Damon Zwicker really did a hit job on the Gaslamp without an ounce of humanity. Sure, the Gaslamp has its problems, but so does every major city in the United States. Heaven forbid that the attendees of Comic-Con encountered real-life problems that disrupted their cosplay fantasies. Maybe he should look in his own backyard (the San Fernando Valley) in his crusade to clean up the streets before he starts bashing one of the many vibrant communities that make up San Diego. To describe our unhoused population as “zombie-like people wander[ing] the streets in a drug-filled haze” is not only hyperbole but inhumane. Stay away from the Gaslamp, Damon (as your letter intends you will). America’s Finest City doesn’t need negative Nellies such as yourself.
— Joe Leggett, Bonita
Well Frank, I doubt very much that you have spent much time at all in the Gaslamp or any part of downtown San Diego recently. If you had, you would see that this person observations are right on target. Fecal matter, urine, trash can be found on every single street corner and back alley throughout downtown. It is filthy and disgusting. The parking, or lack thereof, is another reason I do not like to frequent downtown. It has been my experience that the “unhoused”, as the progressives like to call them nowadays, are in fact “Zombie-like people wondering the streets in a drug-filled haze”. Perhaps you should take a walk downtown and see it for yourself, hmm?
JS – You do realize that comment was a letter to the editor at the U-T, don’t you? We reposted it to show another side.
In fact, JS, the Rag was one of the first local media to show the tents of the homeless downtown years ago.
It’s not necessary to defend the indefensible. News flash: this has never been America’s Finest City, a title conferred at a past moment of civic scandal. And it can be shocking to witness the extent of homelessness on our streets.
I have houseguests visiting from a small town in Rhode Island this week. Based on social media hype, the 16-year-old is hot to visit Gaslamp and the urban center of this now-famous city. I have indicated I don’t go there anymore, as it is mostly bars and homeless people — no more movies or repertory theater or shopping or a pleasant street-scene. But she and her family will check it out for themselves tomorrow. The kiddo had admired our dramatic skyline from the airport’s Harbor Drive.
I described San Diego’s transformation from 1970 when I arrived here. A place with a gorgeous harbor and beaches, 30 minutes from the Mexican border, a sleepy Navy town of one-story businesses and warehouses, changing rooms, SROs, pinball galleries and x-rated movies.. In the mid-1980’s a new red trolley and a flashy Horton Plaza triggered a developers’ frenzy of construction — harbor-front high-rise hotels, a massive convention center, a downtown replacement baseball stadium and many condominium towers, an architect-designed public library squeezed in among freeways and costly dense residences on streets lined at first with cardboard box caves and then tent-dwellings and the detritus of homeless life.
I didn’t mention the 2000’s Hepatitis epidemic among our unhoused residents that former Mayor Kevin Faulconer was slow to address — he’s running for a County Supervisor’s seat and seriously deserves to be defeated based on past history.
Oh yes, the HEP A epidemic….suddenly, and way too late, Newport Ave. was being hosed down with (?) acid?/water?, portable washing stations showed up, etc. And how many people died?
Faulconer was late to the game. I do remember when he had boulders placed under bridges and things when a national baseball game was to be played here….he didn’t want the optics of people in tents and sleeping bags clustered under the bridges on the parade route.
At least he did one thing right!
What did he do right?