Community Bored

Local News Station Believes Polk Street Bar Scene Is New

Stock photo pimp and ho.
Stock photo pimp and ho.

We think this is mostly a case of an older local reporter falling asleep at the typewriter, but CBS’s Bob Melrose puts together a few quotes from an angry-neighbor coalition and the police regarding the “burgeoning nightlife scene” on lower Polk Street, and all the trouble it’s causing. To our mind, Polk Street is a lot more gentrified than it was in the heyday of gay hustlers and other prostitutes, but according to one alarmed neighbor, the post-collegiate bar scene has somehow increased the amount of violent crime associated with pimps and prostitutes, “and so forth.”

Stock photo pimp and ho.

(Also, perhaps apropos of nothing, both quotes in the piece — one from the NIMBY and one from a cop — end in “and so forth.” Coincidence?)

The bar scene on Polk Street’s been pretty lively with drunk former frat boys for at least a decade, if not two, and the prostitutes were there long before that, so we’re not sure what they’re talking about.

In summation, there is a lot of nightlife on Polk Street, and occasional crime, and those who dislike nightlife would like to believe the two are linked though there has not been much evidence of that.

San Francisco Polk Gulch Residents Claim Nightlife Scene Adds To Crime [CBS]

Local News Station Believes Polk Street Bar Scene Is New