If you live in San Francisco, you don’t need to own a car to know that soaring vehicle break-ins have plagued the city for nearly a decade.
The burglaries got so bad a few years ago that The Chronicle conducted an investigation. Among the findings: Car break-ins hit a historic high of 31,122 in 2017, with arrests made in less than 2% of the cases.
But shelter-in-place orders in mid-March caused big changes in the city’s crime patterns. Car break-ins have taken an especially deep dive during the coronavirus pandemic, according to The Chronicle’s S.F. Car Break-in Tracker, which highlights data provided by the San Francisco Police Department.
January saw more break-ins this year compared to last year, and February’s reported incidents were on par with the past two years. But in March, when shelter-in-place began, vehicle break-ins dropped by 38% — with 1,040 incidents reported this year compared to 1,691 last year.
The difference since then has been even more pronounced: a decline of more than 50% each month from April through June.
One reason is obvious, experts say: Tourists have largely disappeared, and with them the easy targets for burglars.
“The best explanation is that this must represent a reduction in break-ins done of cars parked by tourist or casual visitors in commercial areas,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the school's Criminal Justice Center. “People are overwhelmingly more likely to leave valuables in the car as tourists or casual visitors than at home.”
In June 2019, the hottest spot for car break-ins was the city’s Central district, which includes most of the city’s top tourist attractions, including Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, Lombard Street, North Beach and Chinatown. In the area around Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 alone, 208 break-ins were reported in June 2019. Last month saw just 53.
Big declines also occurred in other major break-in zones, including the Embarcadero, Chinatown and Union Square. In May last year, 22 car break-ins were reported in Union Square. This year? Just one.
Incidents were also high last year near the Palace of Fine Arts, with 32 in April, 57 in May and 58 in June. This year saw zero incidents in April and five in May. Break-ins rose to 20 in June, as parks reopened and public activity increased in the area.
The hit to San Francisco County tourism is reflected in numbers from STR Inc., which provides market data on the hotel industry. March saw a 68% decrease in hotel business from last year, April declined 81.7%, and May decreased 72%. Most of the city’s hotels have been closed to leisure travelers, and those open are providing lodging for essential workers and homeless individuals.
Parking garages are normally magnets for break-ins, but occupancy for city-owned garages plummeted 93% in April compared to 2019, and 90% in May, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The numbers rebounded a little in June with a drop of 79%, and so far in July, parking is down 73% from last year.
SFMTA manages more than 40 garages and lots across the city, closing many of them to minimize the risk of coronavirus to staff. About half of them are now open to the public.
While drastically lower than usual, incidents in the Northern district have remained higher than in other parts of the city during the pandemic. Higher rates of car break-ins occurred in Japantown, Hayes Valley and the Tenderloin, which were all hot spots pre-pandemic too.
“The number of good targets is still lower than before the pandemic, but the reduction in the number of targets is smaller than somewhere else like Union Street or another fancy shopping area,” Weisberg said. “They might go where the net loss of targets isn’t as bad as other places.”
Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang
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July 24, 2020 at 06:00PM
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Pandemic hit the brakes on SF’s car break-in crisis. See how crime numbers have changed - San Francisco Chronicle
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