Article Media
SAN FRANCISCO—Today, a San Francisco Court denied the motion for a preliminary civil injunction filed by the San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera that would have banned four people from the Tenderloin District: a 50-square block area abundant with services, businesses, and other opportunities that support marginalized communities.
The City had argued that, because these four people allegedly engaged in isolated incidents of street-level drug sales, they should be banished from the neighborhood forever. The Court denied the motion because the solution was overbroad—instead of targeting the alleged unlawful conduct, it would have targeted people’s mere presence in the neighborhood.
“As Judge Schulman recognized, the effort to exclude our clients from an entire neighborhood lacked precedent would be an unconstitutional violation of our clients’ right to freedom of movement,” said Annie Decker, staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. “We are grateful that the Court rejected the City’s massive overreach and its attempt to scapegoat four individuals for its own policy failures to address real needs in the Tenderloin. The City should instead work with the many community partners in the Tenderloin, including those who support our clients in this case, to find more effective solutions than what the City attempted here.”
