By Debra Morris–
The Castro Farmers’ Market is back for the season! Stop by and pick up your greens on March 17 St. Patrick’s Day! and welcome all your favorite farmers and other purveyors of fine foods and products. The market, located on Noe Street between Market and Beaver, will be open every Wednesday from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm with the first hour for seniors and those most at risk for coronavirus, and will run through November 17.
Allen Moy, Executive Director of Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association (PCFMA), says, “This farmers’ market is here for the community, a place where you can get outside and see your neighbors in a safe environment, select great produce, and help farmers at the same time.”
Mission Station s new captain is spending at least some of her first weeks on the job reconnecting with the communities she serves in central San Francisco. It s been absolutely fantastic, Captain Rachel Moran told the Bay Area Reporter. It s great reconnecting with staff at the station and going out to talk with the community from a captain s perspective. It s good for your soul great, but busy, let me tell you.
As the B.A.R. reported last month, Moran, who d been an officer at Mission Station for about a decade until being transferred to the special victims unit for a year and a half, returned to become the first woman to lead the station February 20. In addition to the Mission district, the station serves part of the Castro and Noe Valley.
Neighborhood merchants are reeling from the effects of lockdowns such as an ongoing spate of window-breaking and other vandalism even while the Castro joins the rest of San Francisco in moving into the less restrictive red tier of COVID-19 reopenings.
That and updates from gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and bisexual Assistant District Attorney Matt Donahue, his office s liaison to the neighborhood, were the focus of the virtual Thursday meeting of the Castro Merchants.
Dave Karraker, a gay man who is a spokesperson for, and board member of, Castro Merchants, told the B.A.R. late last week that the association is launching the Castro Window Recovery Initiative.
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Castro Store Owners Say They ve Paid $120,000 to Repair Windows Smashed By Vandals In the Last Year
Many businesses across the city boarded up their front windows last March as they faced an uncertain future and an extended period of forced closure due to the pandemic. Many have pulled down that plywood and reopened in some capacity, but over the past year they ve been victims of petty vandalism and theft during nights when few police appear on patrol, and some say they want the city to compensate them for damages.
The Castro is hardly the only neighborhood dealing with rampant crime in recent months. Home and garage break-ins have been reportedly skyrocketing in previously quiet parts of town like Bernal Heights and the Richmond District, and a rash of vandalism in Hayes Valley and the Haight led to Supervisor Dean Preston and DA Chesa Boudin spearheading a financial relief fund for District 5 businesses last fall.