BENCHES IN U.N. PLAZA CLEARED BY CITY TO DISCOURAGE BURGEONING DRUG
TRADE

San Francisco -- Karl Landes opened the farmers' market in San
Francisco's United Nations Plaza at 6 a.m. yesterday with the
suspicion that something was wrong.

Jolted wide awake in the cold dark dawn, he noticed that each of the
plaza's 24 benches had been sawed off at the base and whisked away.

Landes, who manages the twice-weekly market, later learned from some
street people who call U.N. Plaza home that city Public Works crews
removed the benches Saturday night to discourage loitering and drug
dealing.

Now Landes, market vendors and locals have mixed feelings about the
missing benches that lined the rectangular plaza, a place built for
peace but frequently a site for controversy.

"If it gets rid of people shooting up and smoking crack," Landes said,
he's glad the seats are gone.

The city ripped out the benches as part of an continuing effort by
Mayor Willie Brown and the Public Works Department to clean up a
public space often occupied by the homeless, drug users and dealers,
said Mohammed Nuru, deputy director of operations for the Public Works
Department. The city already has been moving out homeless people's
shopping carts -- their mobile suitcases -- that lined both sides of
the plaza, which is sandwiched between Market Street and the Civic
Center.

"People have been really afraid to walk through the U.N. Plaza because
other people have been using the benches to sleep or hang out on them
or, you know, have all kinds of transactions going on," Nuru said. "We
come out here every day and clean the plaza. . . and I personally have
removed a lot of needles from the tree wells here and planters."

The city's next step in revitalizing the area is to add extra
lighting, more security, and possibly beautify the lawns and planters.
The mayor also is considering creating a playground for the children
living in the diverse and dense Tenderloin District.

Nuru said the bench action Saturday had nothing to do with a new
report broadcast Friday by San Francisco television station KRON
(Channel 4). The report dealt with drug dealing in the plaza.

The changes in the plaza are apparently the result of nearby business
owners lobbying the mayor for a cleaner area and more social services
for the homeless there.

Several farmers' market vendors said yesterday they were glad the
benches are gone. One woman selling vegetables, who asked not to be
named for fear of retribution, said she has been robbed by people
loitering on the benches by her stand on market days.

John Garrione, owner of Hazel Dell Mushrooms in Moss Landing, has sold
his goods at the market for about 16 years. He said the characters who
hang around on the benches scare off business.

Sister Bernie Galvin of Religious Witness with Homeless People,
however, said chasing out the homeless, only to have them relocate in
another section of the city, is pointless.

The nearby Civic Center used to be a homeless hangout in the 1980s and
early 1990s, until the city remodeled that plaza -- and removed the
benches.

"You can't hide a social problem as major as this. And that's what
this has been," Galvin said.

Jay Carter, 68, was among the locals who missed the benches yesterday.
He was looking for a place to catch his breath after walking to the
farmers' market from his residential hotel room a block away.

"Old people like myself need a place to sit down," Carter
said.