tweakers ally in the SF Chron building

Yesterday I went to a wine reception at the San Francisco Impact Hub. I have wanted to join a HUB for some time but felt I could not spend the money. Now that I am launching a new business, I need to be interacting with other social artists and small business entrepreneurs. I need to be in a collaborative environment.

There is a Hub in the office building next to the building I live in. I can see the Berkeley HUB from my apartment, across the courtyard. The Berkeley HUB will be my home HUB but membership in the Berkeley HUB buys me access to the SF HUB. So I wanted to check out the SF HUB.

Yesterday an organization that just took some office space in the SF HUB held a wine reception, open to anyone. I thought it was a good chance to check out SF HUB.

To enter the SF HUB without membership, one has to be screened by the Chronicle security guard and given a visitor badge.

When I arrived at the security desk, an understandably excited young man was describing an experience he had just had. In some place in the Chron building, or maybe just outside it -- I don't know the building well enough to know there 'tweakers' alley' might be, whether it is literally in the alley. The understandable tense young man kept repeating his story, the guard kept asking him the same questions.

And the guard kept me and another woman waiting a really long time. Clearly the guard could not resolve the young man's problem. Actually the young man had solved his own problem. Some high, likely-drug-addicted young man had asked to borrow his cell. The guy at the security desk, the crime victim, said "I am too naive, I guess, I just handed him my phone. I will never give a strange my phone to use, no matter excuse they give for asking to use my phone, I'll dial for them."

The 'high' phone thief just kept the phone, with the victim amiably walking along, initially believing the thief would use his phone and return it. When it became obvious the thief was not going to return his phone, the young Chronicle intern explained to the thief how important his phone was to him and how he really needed to get his phone back. The thief said "I'll give you the phone if you give me $100". The kid said "I am an unpaid intern, I don't have $100." The thief suggested they go to a bank machine and extract $100. The kid said "how about $20?  I think I have $20 in my bank account."

Once the intern had gone to the bank machine with his cell phone thief, the thief took the money but continued to resist giving up the phone. The unpaid intern kept begging for his phone, explaining his need to keep it, his inability to finance a replacement and swearing that tapping him for $20 was a bite for the unpaid intern to absorb.  The thief was obviously high but he must have been, somewhere within, aware he was behaving badly. He was coy with his victim, taking his twenty and initially refusing to yield the phone. Finally he gave the guy back his phone and even said "I won't keep your twenty" but he did.

I listened to the understandably adrenaline filled young man tell this story three or four times, with the security guard clearly incapable of doing anything constructive, like pick up the phone and call the police or take down the victim's contact info so if the Chron security staff wanted to talk to him about the incident, like maybe if they saw the incident on security tapes and could ID the thief.

Finally I said "i will take a few secons to check us in, could you check us in and then keep listening to this crime victim?"

This irritated the security guard so he pointedly took care of the other woman, who had arrived longer after me, before me.  While he tended to her, I advised the kid not to file a police report, which he had already said he didn't want to do. Oh, I think it optimal to pursue such street crime but I know that security cameras are deceptive. They do not provide much security.  Unless someone happens to see the video recorded and happens to be able to identify the thief, the odds of catching that petty thief are extremely remote, while the time consumed by the victim wasting time could be enormous.

After I shared my thoughts, the security guard let me in. I don't know what happened with that unpaid intern's report. That security guard seemed totally clueless as to what to do about it.

I have read many complaints of the aggressive rudeness of the Chronicle's security guards. Apparently the guards are rude to folks who come to the security desk and provide ID but they are not, evidently, trained to deal with actual security breaches like cell phone theft by an alleged tweaker.

Tweakers Ally in the SF Chronicle building or ally. Who would have thunk it?

Note, there is no security presence in the huge ally, where newspaper delivery trucks of old must have picked up paper newspaper for distribution around the bay. Sometimes it is now filled with food trucks. One truck that sometimes shows up there sells awesome fallafel. Expensively priced but it is downtown SF. And not even organic.  I pay seventy five cents apiece for organic fallafel in Berkeley. Non-organic fallafel can be boght for 40 cents apiece in Berkeley. And nonorganic fallafel in Tweakers Ally is ninety five cents.  Still, every time I pass that big covered 'ally', delivery area, for the SF Chron building, I check to see if the fallafel truck is there. Fallafel is gluten free and tahini is dairy free:  good I can eat, healthy, delicious. Add a green salad and I have a perfect antiinflammatory, nutritious and weight-loss condusive meal:  yum.