Castro merchants decry 'routine' vandalism
After a chilly weekend, it was a beautiful, warm Monday morning in the Castro. A promising start to the week, unless you happen to own Mudpuppy's.The night before, March 6, someone smashed the large plate glass windows of the 10-year-old dog grooming shop, which hung over the holding pens where their canine clients await their turn with their groomers.
By Monday morning, two workmen were busy installing new windows. Inside, co-owner Todd Ahlberg was feeling frustrated with what was only the latest in an ongoing stream of vandalism on Castro Street that have become seemingly routine. "If there had been a dog in the window, they'd have been killed," said Ahlberg, a gay San Francisco native.
He had heard the attack - and Ahlberg feels strongly it was an attack - from his apartment upstairs above the shop. Running downstairs, he saw who he said was a man he recognized throwing benches from a neighboring ice cream shop into his storefront.
The suspect, said Ahlberg, was a guy he'd seen around the neighborhood for the past two months, a guy he'd seen allegedly smoking meth, a guy who had been taken in by police recently after behaving erratically, naked and dragging a blanket at 18th and Castro, only to show up on the street again two days later."He's progressively getting more dangerous," said Ahlberg.City public safety officials said the problem is common not just in the LGBTQ San Francisco neighborhood but also up and down the state."What you're talking about is a larger social issue that is daunting to the state of California," said David Burke, a civilian with the San Francisco Police Department who serves as District 8 public safety liaison. "These people should be in mental institutions that we don't have.
