San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has a solution to the ongoing problems in Golden Gate Park.
The outgoing mayor thinks shutting down the City's largest park at night. Earlier this week, the San Francisco Police Department told the Board of Supervisors that crime in the park is far worse than what statistics show on paper.
Tuesday, Newsom introduced legislation that would close Golden Gate Park and McLaren Park from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.
"If you're lurking in the park at 3 a.m, there's a good chance you're up to no good," Newsom's Spokesman Tony Winnicker told the San Francisco Examiner.
Police officials told the City that a lot of crime in Golden Gate Park goes unreported because some of it is homeless on homeless crime and some of it involves people who are illegally sleeping in the park and don't want to report being assaulted.
Cleaning up the park has long been an agenda item for Newsom, who famously used to go on walks through Golden Gate Park as far back as 2005 personally asking the homeless to move on.
If his new legislation passes, it would allow officers to file charges against people lingering in the park at night instead of issuing citations.
