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Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

“Carl Fricke, a board member of the Lucas Valley Estates Homeowners Association, which represents houses nearest to the Lucas property, said: ‘We got letters saying, “You guys are going to get what you deserve. You’re going to bring drug dealers, all this crime and lowlife in here.”’”

It’s amazing how grotesquely uninformed their ideas are about low income people. Oh, you live in Marin and you think people who live in low income housing are “drug dealers” and “low lifes”? We have to take Carl Fricke at his word about these letters, but if true shows just how ignorant and even racist people can be even in so-called “progressive” areas.

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Obviously, not all low income people are alike. But in nearby San Francisco, they built a low income housing complex near my house, and now there are people outside the entryway smoking marijuana in public at least 1 in 10 times I pass it. I push my kid’s stroller through the smoke.

Call me ignorant, call me racist, call me heartless, call me whatever you want. If another one of these housing complexes is proposed here, I will do my part to stop it. These individuals are currently smoking marijuana on the street somewhere, and that’s where they can continue to do it.

Isn’t cannabis legal?

Well for starters, it's still federally illegal even if it's legal in the State of California.

Secondly, even in California, "Recreational use of cannabis in public is still illegal."

Smoking it has been de facto legalized in San Francisco for a while now (presumably only in areas where smoking/vaping are allowed). I'd have to go look to be certain, but I believe that marijuana citations were formally classed as the lowest priority for SFPD a few years back.

I’m not asking SFPD to ticket these guys, I’m just asking policymakers to not import them into my neighborhood of luxury condos and families with small children.

And my point went right over your head. Especially in San Francisco smoking pot in public transcends class and wealth.

Maybe mine did as well. Yes, there are plenty of places where smoking pot transcends class. 6th and Market, Geary and Leavenworth, 3rd and Brannan even. Keep the low income housing and homeless shelters there. Don’t fuck up new neighborhoods.

Despite your clutching your pearls, smoking pot in your neighborhood isn't new. Poor people don't fuck up "new neighborhoods". If you don't want to see poverty, San Francisco is definitely the wrong choice for you.

Call me ignorant, call me racist, call me heartless, call me whatever you want.

That you brought race into the discussion is pretty clear evidence that your concerns are not pot smoke.

I like how you are the expert on when pot smoking on the street in my neighborhood became a thing, despite not knowing what neighborhood I’m even talking about.

Given that I was born in San Francisco and have lived in the Bay Area my whole life I feel pretty qualified to comment. But your whole "call me a racist if you must" thing is very telling. There's also simply not that much low income housing in SF proper.

I call bullshit. People smoke pot out in the open in San Francisco all the fucking time, in nearly every neighborhood, and have done so for many, many years regardless of their income level. For example: the Financial District at lunch. OTOH if "low income housing complex" is a euphemism for Eatsa then I'm with you.

They didn’t in my neighborhood before the introduction of this complex. I assume that the neighborhoods you’re referencing may be where they moved in from, and it’s there that I prefer they stay.

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