2010 Lunar New Year Press Conference on Leland Avenue

This is very exciting...

The 13^th annual LNY press conference jointly sponsored by SF SAFE and SFPD will take place in Visitacion Valley this year.  Chief Gascón, Captain David Lazar (Ingleside), Captain Greg Suhr (Bayview) among others will be present.


Lunar New Year Crime Prevention and Public Safety Awareness Campaign Press Conference

DATE :   Tuesday 2 /9/10

TIME:   1:30 pm

Leland Avenue @ Alpha St.

ANNUAL LUNAR NEW YEAR PUBLIC SAFETY CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND

Lunar New Year, commonly known as Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival, is the most celebrated annual holidays by the Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean.

The Celebrations of the Lunar New Year are filled with similar traditional customs that date back thousands of years. From cleaning and decorating houses, replenishing new household and personal items, participating in various games and contests to colorful parades of lion and dragon dances and lanterns, it is a time of celebration among the Asian communities.

The Lunar New Year Celebration in San Francisco sees many activities due to the demographic presence of the Chinese and other Asian communities. Merchants and their affiliated Business Associations will host dinner parties during the first month of the New Year to celebrate the Spring Festival and to wish themselves a successful year to come. The San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade is so popular that it is a significant annual attraction to local residents and tourists.

Crimes During the Lunar New Year On the other side of this happy occasion, the Asian and local criminals are also out to prey on potential victims. The season brings opportunity for extortion from small businesses, street robbery and pick-pocketing, burglary and home invasion, and tricks intended to rip off lucky monies from children’s red packets. Extortions during the Lunar New Year are commonplace within the Asian communities throughout the world. Taking advantage of the cultural custom, gangsters will present azalea and kumquat trees to the small business (retail stores, restaurants, mini grocery stores etc) owners, demanding protection money, from hundreds to thousands of dollars, threatening physical harm and property damage. Many of these cases go unreported for fear of revenge, lack of language capabilities or other cultural reasons.

SF SAFE and SFPD Roles   In 1998, SF SAFE, acting on the instructions of Chief Fred Lau, SFPD, worked in cooperation with Captain John Goldberg of Central Station to map and plan a safety awareness campaign to educate the Asian merchants and break their silence. At that time, it was estimated that hundreds of cases occurred in our city. The campaign sought to address this extortion cycle in Chinatown and San Francisco. The campaign has since been officially sealed as an annual city-wide crime prevention event.

Each year, SF SAFE distributes some 2,800 crime prevention information packages to the Asian merchants, and 5,000 red packets containing safety tips to shoppers and residents. SF SAFE also reaches out to other sections of the Asian community via the mainstream and Asian media – newspapers, radio and television stations.

In 2008, only 7 cases of extortion were reported for the whole year. This result is very encouraging and SAFE has witnessed a growing willingness to cooperate with the police after years of public education efforts. It has also been noted that street crimes targeting against the Chinese community during the Lunar New Year are continuing to decline.

New Focus

Now that extortion cases have almost entirely been eradicated, SAFE has shifted the focus to be timely. Last year the focus of the campaign was Home Burglary Prevention and the press conferences were held in Chinatown and the Richmond District. This year, in light of the current concerns in Visitacion Valley, we plan to focus the campaign on Street Crimes and Muni Safety. We have been working with Captain Lazar to develop best practices for the community and new materials for the campaign. 

Your neighborhood pharmacy

When it comes to commercial institutions in Visitacion Valley, none is more storied than the Visitacion Valley Pharmacy at 100 Leland Avenue. With downtown Visitacion Valley undergoing tremendous changes via the Leland Avenue Streetscape Improvement Project, construction of a new branch library, and the redevelopment of the old Schlage Lock site, it is fascinating to step back and examine how much the community has changed. As the Visitacion Valley History Project (VVHP) reveals, the storefront has seen it all in the past 150 years. The following excerpt is taken from San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley (Images of America Series) book, available locally at Joe Leland Coffee Shop – 28 Leland Avenue for the winter bargain price of $15.00.

“In the mid-1860’s the Rossi family settled in Visitacion Valley and established large vegetable gardens which they worked by hand. Virginio Rossi went on to own the Visitacion Valley Pharmacy on Leland Avenue until 1970, when his daughter took over. Oral historian Mary Leotta Schwartz recalled that when she was a young girl the “library” was a single shelf unit about three feet wide and five or six shelves high, located in Jennings’ store at Leland and Alpha, which later was Rossi’s pharmacy. “There were no cards or due dates,” she remembered. “People simply borrowed books and returned them to the shelf.” Edie Epps remembers going to the pharmacy with her mother when she was a little girl. The mezzanine above the store was hung with old photos of Visitacion Valley and some deer and elk heads. Behind the counter was a line of big jars filled with candy, root beer barrels, horehound drops, hot cinnamon drops and others and it was a great treat to pick out twenty-five cents’ worth.”

Today, Pharmacist Oliver Lee and his friendly, knowledgeable staff are dedicated to treating all customers as family. Aside from filling vital prescriptions, the Visitacion Valley Pharmacy offers an array of household health and beauty products including; vitamins, cosmetics, cough and cold medicine, band aids and cough drops just to name a few. They also have a large selection of greeting cards, stationery and they sell monthly SF Muni Monthly passes. Drop by, say hello and of course shop local.

Birthday wishes are in order

Casa Lopez, the fruit and produce market at 58 Leland Avenue celebrated their 5th Anniversary on Friday January 1, 2010. To show their appreciation for the community's support, they served up free hot dogs and hamburgers for all downtown Visitacion Valley shoppers from noon to 3pm. In 2005, Casa Lopez was selected as an honorable mention for the inaugural San Francisco Neighborhood Business Award sponsored by the Examiner and Urban Solutions. 5 years later Casa Lopez continues to provide neighborhood residents access to organic produce and fresh meats in a warm, festive shopping environment. Casa Lopez remains a family-owned business operated by Trinidad and Refugio Lopez. Remember, local merchants are here to support the community. Make it a point to shop downtown Visitation Valley in 2010.

SAFE – Lunar New Year Visitacion Valley

The 13th Annual Lunar New Year public safety press conference will kick off the 2010-Year of the Tiger celebrations on Tuesday, February 9th at 1:30pm in downtown Visitacion Valley on Leland Avenue. With a precise location still to be determined, the event is being hosted by San Francisco Safety Awareness for Everyone (SF SAFE) in collaboration with San Francisco Chief of Police, George Gascon, along with Captain David Lazar (Ingleside) and Captain Greg Suhr (Bayview). The growth of the Leland Avenue Merchant Watch Group coupled with increased concern for safety on neighborhood bus lines has landed the annual press conference in Visitacion Valley. Thanks to strong partnerships with SF SAFE and SFPD, this year’s press conference will focus on street crime prevention Muni safety.