View the San Francisco for Thursday, August 15, 2024
From left: Luke Mitchell, Dara Keane, Brian Sancimino, Vincent Sancimino, Tom Sancimino, Steve Sancimino, Kevin Sancimino, Joey Miles and Dominic Green put in hard work at Swan Oyster Depot.The venerable fresh seafood restaurant has changed hands since then, and perhaps its clientele, but out-the-door lines remain a common sight on the nearby sidewalk.
Since the storefront reopened in 1912, San Francisco residents and out-of-town tourists alike have waited for their turn to amble up to Swan Oyster’s long marble counter andSwan Oyster’s staff, which prepares and serves dishes an arm’s length away from patrons, said the restaurant is simultaneously a capsule of San Francisco’s history and an establishment that is unlike any other that new and returning diners will see. “People who come here for the first time, they don’t even know what to think,” Kevin Sancimino, owner of Swan Oyster Depot, told The Examiner. “It’s kind of more of a fish delicatessen where you just happen to have this ancient marble counter and people who’ve been doing it now for generations,” he said. “This place is kind of our product. It’s kind of a working museum, if you will.”from four Danish brothers. Prior to Sancimino’s family taking over, Swan Oyster had a reputation for supplying seafood for socialite gatherings and other big parties. “People enjoyed sitting and talking and just shooting their s---,” Sancimino said, and that Swan Oyster had “kind of morphed into this dining counter.” Swan Oyster Depot’s staff is a mix of family, friends and other acquaintances. Many of the young workers behind the counter got their starts in high school while attending Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory and retained their positions long after heading off to or graduating from college.graduate, said he has been working at the restaurant for nearly five years. His days typically start around 6:30 a.m. doing prep work such as laying out boxes of ice, which he says “is definitely a two-man job.” “Getting things up and running is the hard part,” Miles said. “Once everything’s there, it’s very easy to rock and roll throughout the day.” For some staff members, Swan Oyster Depot’s compact is both a charm and an asset. Employees said they quickly develop bonds since they work in such close proximity to one another, among other advantages., vintage fishing equipment, family photos provided by customers and even a mounted marlin that a customer donated when he needed to make space in his garage. Sancimino said that other restaurant staples include a lending library that is stocked by Swan Oyster Depot staff and customers, bills that are used as different countries’ currencies and two folded American flags that belonged to his grandparents. He added that “a lot of the stuff” on Swan Oyster’s walls was brought in by customers, meaning “people get to leave their mark in their own way.” “People genuinely come here and they feel like they’re a part of something,” said Marino Peradotto, who has worked at Swan Oyster Depot since 2012. “The customers really do make this the attraction, day in and day out,” he said. “People go to a lot of places and have unrealistic expectations and somehow, some way, especially with the guys that work around the counter, we satisfy that expectation in some capacity.” Peradotto said that it is fun to enlighten diners with facts and other tidbits from the depot’s history, such as the fact the restaurant’s salmon is smoked in Bodega Bay by a family that created a recipe specifically for Swan Oyster Depot. Other times, he’s regaling patrons with the fact that Swan Oyster Depot boils its own crabs in-house during the offseason once they’re Hayden Whitcomb, who just graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder and is preparing for a move to London, said he began working for Swan Oyster six years ago during his time at Sacred Heart. Since then, the seasonal worker has clocked in for shifts during summer and winter breaks, as well as any other time off. Whitcomb said that he and the staff make it a point to know every customer’s name by the end of their first visit. “You come in here a second time, we’re gonna know your name,” Whitcomb told The Examiner. “I think that is special, and it makes people feel special. That’s kind of lost in a lot of places.” He said that he feels most fulfilled when diners walk away full, happy and ready to invite someone else to the restaurant.Santiago Calero, a Swan Oyster Depot worker currently attending UC Santa Barbara, said he has enjoyed the past 3½ years at the restaurant. “At my age, a lot of people are entering the work industry, and they’re entry-level jobs they don’t really enjoy,” Calero said. He told The Examiner that being behind the counter has allowed him to hone his serving, waiting and cooking skills, as staff members equally share their labor. “I’ve been to very few places in my travels in the world that create this type of experience — where it’s a bar-type feeling, where you’re interacting, you’re authentic with customers, with the food — and you’re still serving great food,” Calero said. “It’s a very rewarding job,” he said. “You get to make people’s day. This is the highlight of a lot of people’s trips. A lot of people come to California just to eat — go to San Francisco just to eat.”Data from San Francisco’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count showed significant drops in homelessness in supervisorial districts 5 and 6 and a sharp rise in districts 3 and 10. Homelessness overall increased in The City by 7%, from 7,754 people in 2022 to 8,323 in 2024. The prevalence of homelessness changed dramatically in four San Francisco supervisorial districts over the last two years, according to new Point-in-Time Count data The City’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing provided to The Examiner on Wednesday. The data showed significant drops in homelessness in districts 5 and 6 and sharp rises in districts 3 and 10. Districts 5 and 6 — which include the Tenderloin and SOMA, neighborhoods where poverty and substance abuse are especially pervasive — experienced a notable decrease in the number of people not living in shelters. “We’re proud of that progress,” said District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston. “There’s obviously a lot more to do, but it’s definitely a good sign.”that takes place every two years on a specific night; this year’s took place Jan. 30. The City released preliminary data from the count in May, showing that homelessness overall increased in The City by 7%, from 7,754 people in 2022 to 8,323 in 2024. The number of unsheltered homeless people in District 5 decreased from 1,225 in 2022 to 975 this year, about a 20% decline. The number of sheltered homeless people went up from 722 to 724, according to the data. District 5’s share of The City’s unhoused population fell from more than one-fourth in 2022 to around 20% this year. One of the main factors behind these changes, Preston said, is an increased effort to fill vacant supportive-housing units. Preston said about 1,000 — or 10% of The City’s stock — sat empty as of September 2023.Preston said the new PIT Count data is a reflection of this progress. “We were very supportive of moving folks immediately from the streets into existing homes,” he said. “That clearly works, and we should be doing more of that.”Supervisor Dean Preston: “We were very supportive of moving folks immediately from the streets into existing homes. That clearly works, and we should be doing more of that.”Emily Cohen, a department spokesperson, agreed that the district’s success can partly be attributed to the push to fill vacant permanent supportive housing units. She also said that increased capacity at existing shelters is the main factor in reducing unsheltered homelessness in District 5. As for District 6, Cohen said the shifts in the population were also largely due to increases in shelter capacity, which led to a reduction in the number of unsheltered homeless people in the area from 993 in 2022 to 766 this year, a decline of about 23%. There was also a decrease in the number of sheltered homeless people in the district from 1,308 to 1,219, which Cohen said was caused by the closure of shelter-in-place hotels from the COVID-19 pandemic. Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6, did not respond to the Examiner’s request for comment by the time of publication. While these shifts seem to signal improvements in The City’s response to providing shelter for unhoused people, the 3,834 shelter beds and 382 transitional housing beds available within the San Francisco shelter system amount to around half of the total homeless population. Preston said the lack of shelter is still a concern, particularly as officials move ahead on a new policy to more aggressively clear encampments in the wake of the U.S. “Rather than doubling down on those approaches that were working, we see more recent approach in an election year of a lot of very tough, heated rhetoric and aggressive sweeps,” he said. “I think that that threatens to undermine a lot of the progress that we’ve been making which is reflected in the PIT Count numbers.” Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for Breed’s office, told The Examiner that outreach teams continue to conduct outreach during encampment cleanups with offers of shelter and a resources-first approach, despite the changes made in the last couple of weeks. “We’ve also seen as teams go out over and over again, some people are not accepting help,” he said. “We will continue to lead with shelter options, but those options need to be taken.”The San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team speaking with a person living at a homeless encampment before a September 2023 sweep on Toland Street between Jerrold and McKinnon avenues in the Bayview. Districts 3 and 10, meanwhile, experienced significant increases in their homeless populations. In District 3, the number of sheltered homeless people more than doubled, from 357 in 2022 to 775 in 2024. Board of Supervisors President and mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin — who represents District 3, which includes the Financial District, Chinatown and North Beach — said this is a reflection of two major shelter additions in the last two years: 250 beds at 711 Post St. and 83 beds for homeless youth at 888 Post St. “Street homelessness went down when we opened those facilities,” he said. “There used to be a lot of street homelessness on , on , and all of that got better when we opened the 711 Post St. facility.” Cohen agreed that those two facilities amounted to vital expansion. She said that capacity at existing shelters had also diminished during COVID-19 to allow for more social distancing, but capacity had returned to normal levels by 2024. However, the unsheltered homeless population has skyrocketed in District 10, nearly doubling from 566 in 2022 to 1,010 in 2024. That area of The City includes Bayview–Hunters Point. Cohen said congregate shelter in the area has expanded. The Bayview SAFE Navigation Center is up to full capacity of 200 shelter beds after opening with 116 in 2021 amid pandemic-era restrictions. But she added that it has been challenging to open up permanent supportive housing in District 10 because of the lack of appropriate buildings available. “That speaks to a real challenge we have in terms of geographic equity and diversity of our programs,” she said. “The building types that we tend to use for housing are not located in District 10, and it makes it harder to do.” District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton’s office did not respond to The Examiner’s request for comment prior to publication. Cohen said that vehicular homelessness has increased in The City in the last two years, particularly in District 10. An influx of RV dwellers led the Board of Supervisors last year to vote to Cohen said that the increase in vehicular homelessness is related to an increase in family homelessness in the last two years, which is reflected in the PIT Count. The City counted 437 homeless families in 2024, a 94% increase from the prior count. Of those families, 143 were unsheltered, and 90% of them were living in vehicles. “I think it’s the ongoing challenges of economic and racial inequality in our community, and people living on the brink,” she said.Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the Department of Public Health, seen in 2021: “Fentanyl remains the primary drivers of the overdose deaths that we continue to report.”The 39 overdose deaths recorded last month equaled the lowest monthly sum since The City started compiling such data in 2020. San Francisco last had fewer than 40 deaths in January 2020, the first month in which the medical examiner started counting overdose deaths amid the ongoing opioid epidemic. Dr. Grant Colfax, the director of the Department of Public Health, said Wednesday that officials were “cautiously optimistic ... but we’ll continue to see how things go.” “Fentanyl remains our focus because fentanyl remains the primary drivers of the overdose deaths that we continue to report,” Colfax said.San Francisco has, in the first seven months of 2024, recorded 412 overdose deaths. At the same time last year, The City had recorded 484. The City’s declining overdose deaths come amid efforts by public-health officials to expand programs and access to medication-based treatments for opioid-use disorder. “These medications reduce the risk of death in some cases by as much as half,” Colfax said, referring to methadone and buprenorphine. “We have made concerted public efforts to make it easy to get these medications ... which reduce the cravings and withdrawal symptoms that delay recovery.”, which previously could only be dispensed by licensed clinics to patients appearing in person. New federal regulations enacted in the spring made it possible for patients to take doses home with them and for doctors to remotely prescribe the medication. California regulations have not yet followed suit. “In order to make a greater impact locally, we must continue to break down the outdated and cumbersome and frankly, sometimes ridiculous, bureaucratic barriers that make treatment hard to access and to maintain,” Colfax said. The San Francisco Department of Public Health has 10 licensed opioid-treatment programs. It also operates the Bridge Clinic, which expanded last month at San Francisco Zuckerberg General Hospital to begin treating patients with methadone three days a week. Dr. Hannah Snyder, the clinic’s medical director, said that they expanded their hours and started accepting drop-ins last month in order to help people outside of licensed clinics’ typical intake time. “While this might sound like no big deal to somebody outside of the substance-use treatment space, it’s everything to our patients who want and need an immediate start to their treatment,” Snyder said., introduced earlier this year by San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney, would allow California doctors to prescribe patients up to 72 hours’ worth of doses and increase the dosage patients can take home from clinics. “I can’t underestimate how much of a game changer this would be for people with opioid addiction and wanting to enter recovery,” Colfax said. Colfax pointed to the expansion of these medications as a large contributing factor to last month’s significant drops in deaths, as well as aFor the last few months, San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Night Navigation street-care team — which the workforce-development nonprofit Code Tenderloin staffs — has provided telehealth appointments with doctors who can provide buprenorphine prescriptions to patients ready to begin treatment. “That pilot program has been a success,” Colfax said. “We’ve reached over 1,000 people in just the first few months of that program, over 800 have been offered prescriptions, so that’s really important.”Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. 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