David Sjostedt

Staff Writer at The San Francisco Standard

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Articles

Great Highway's new skate park is enraging Sunset Dunes haters

3 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | Max Harrison-Caldwell |David Sjostedt

San Franciscans who opposed the closing of the Great Highway to make way for the city’s newest park say they have new legal ammunition in their war: a concrete skate park that’s nearing completion. Anti-park factions were already angry about the swift transformation of the two-mile stretch of road, but the skate park’s construction this week has enraged them further.
OpenAI spent $3 million on that Jony Ive and Sam Altman video

4 weeks ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt

Two cups of single-shot espresso at Cafe Zoetrope will set you back about $10. What really runs up the tab, however, is hiring an Academy Award-winning director to film you and your friend walking there to drink them. That costs about $3 million. At least it did for tech titans Sam Altman and Jony Ive, according to film permits obtained by The Standard. Altman, king of the chatbots, and Ive, iPhone designer, last week unveiled their collaborative company io in a nine-minute commercial.
The party is over in San Francisco’s drug-plagued Tenderloin

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt

Two men circled each other with their fists raised, screaming unintelligibly. Jaw flexed, tongue hanging out, and hair falling over his face, one taunted the other before slamming a kick to his gut. Bystanders egged them on, smirking as they recorded the brawl. The group of roughly 50 people — some smoking, others hawking stolen goods — clogged the sidewalk of United Nations Plaza.
Mystery in the Mission: Crime remains low as public drug use spikes

1 month ago | sfstandard.com | Noah Baustin |David Sjostedt

Something strange is happening in the Mission. Public drug use and intoxication have surged in recent months, infuriating neighbors and generating splashy news coverage. The neighborhood, especially surrounding the 16th Street BART transit hub, is awash in scenes of people lighting up pipes, passing around suspicious baggies, and stumbling down sidewalks. Residents perceive lawlessness and danger all around. But the data tells a totally different story.
San Francisco cop tells homeless to move to take ‘pretty’ photo for mayor

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt

A video captured of the incident is prompting criticism that the mayor is focused on optics, rather than outcomes. Calls for help in the Bayview often lead nowhere. The neighborhood with the largest share of RV encampments also has the city’s slowest response time to complaints about the issue. So when Mayor Daniel Lurie visited the site of a persistent encampment on Gilman Avenue last week, many residents felt it was a promising development.
‘Downtown is for drug users’ activist dead of overdose

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt

By David SjostedtPublished Apr. 15, 2025 • 6:00amSan Francisco was in the middle of a political dogfight over the deadly fentanyl epidemic when drug activist Nova Schultz entered the public eye in the summer of 2023. People were dying of overdoses at a record rate. Drug markets engulfed many downtown sidewalks. And for the first time in years, police were arresting people for using drugs after a crackdown began in the spring. By Aug.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie's 100-day progress report

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez |David Sjostedt |Jonah Owen Lamb |Kevin Truong

By Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, David Sjostedt, Jonah Owen Lamb, Kevin Truong, and Han LiPublished Apr. 14, 2025 • 6:00amIn politics, 100 days can seem like an eternity — has it really been only three months since Trump took office again? — or a blink. Assessing a mayor’s — or president’s — tenure at the 100-day mark is a convention, but an imperfect one, an exercise in judging beginnings without knowledge of the endings.
San Francisco's new overdose hotspot is on the Embarcadero

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt

The surge in drug use on the city's waterfront coincides with an influx of shelter clients, the city says. George Smyth lay dead in a blue planter when staff from his homeless shelter found him. His hand clutched a plastic straw he’d used to smoke drugs. A small bag filled with the meth and fentanyl that killed him was within reach. Even four doses of Narcan, an overdose antidote, weren’t enough to save him, the death report states.
'Moronic': Nonprofit slams Lurie's new rule on free drug supplies

2 months ago | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt

By May 30, all programs must move drug paraphernalia distribution indoors or to controlled spaces. City-funded public health programs will no longer distribute drug use supplies without providing counseling sessions or connecting recipients to services, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced Wednesday. The policy shift, effective April 30, applies to all city programs distributing sterile syringes and smoking kits and prohibits the distribution of smoking supplies in public spaces.
San Francisco is done being soft on drug users

Mar 26, 2025 | sfstandard.com | David Sjostedt |Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

A strategy developed during the AIDS crisis has fallen out of favor during the fentanyl epidemic. Its advocates say people will die. “Stop using drugs,” read the usual note that overdose victims were handed as they left the hospital during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Arms covered in track marks. Dragged in against their will. Spoiling for a fight with staff. Almost always on death’s door.