Hostile Architecture

Two months ago we noted how a San Francisco gallery owner was sentenced to 35 hours of community service because he hosed down a homeless woman to drive her from his entrance.

Collier Gwin apologized but still received death threats and attacks via social media. He also received support from many San Franciscans who had grown frustrated by the inability of the City to make a dent in homeless encampments and open-air drug use.

The unpermitted sprinklers (Chron photo)

Best Western Hotel in San Francisco's Tenderloin district faced a similar problem on a larger scale and tried to employ a similar solution: [bold added]

A hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin that installed overhead sprinklers along the building in an alley where homeless people frequently camp will take them down after a city inspection found they were installed without proper notice, the hotel told the Chronicle on Friday.

The inspection Thursday came after the SF Examiner published a story about the sprinklers that prompted public backlash.

Ken Patel, manager of the Best Western Red Coach Inn at 700 Eddy St., said the hotel used the sprinklers not to ward off unhoused people but to clean the sidewalk beside it, which he said is often dirtied by human waste.

He said hotel employees warned anyone camping below the sprinklers to move before they were turned on, and that the hotel used them only if no one was there.

...The clash comes as San Francisco business owners, city officials and homeless advocates struggle over how to handle homeless encampments. Advocates say sprinklers are an example of “hostile architecture” — physical barriers or deterrents like sidewalk planters, boulders or even loud music meant to discourage people from sleeping or camping in an area.

The City cleans the alley once a week, but hotel employees, as confirmed by the Chronicle, must wash the sidewalk every day.

San Francisco made Best Western remove the sprinklers because the hotel didn't give "proper notice." It's too bad that the City doesn't make people give proper notice before pitching their tent on a sidewalk.