San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Break-in bill’s hopes smashed to pieces
Wiener’s attempt to close loophole dies in committee
Remember that total no-brainer proposal in Sacramento to make it easier to prosecute car break-in suspects? You know, the one that would count a smashed window as evidence that the car was, indeed, broken into?
Well, in the land of brainless politicians, even no-brainer pieces of legislation sometimes go nowhere. This bill — as obviously worthy as it was — failed.
California law now states that smashing a window and stealing items from inside a car can be charged as felony burglary only if prosecutors can prove that the car’s doors were locked. If not, it’s misdemeanor theft.
That means the break-in victim has to testify in court that the car was indeed locked when the theft happened — the broken window and puddle of glass beneath it don’t constitute proof. In San Francisco, car break-ins disproportionately strike tourists, who aren’t exactly
lining up to pay to fly back to the city where their belongings were swiped to testify in court about it.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and District Attorney George Gascón teamed up in January to propose closing the loophole by ensuring that forcible entry into a vehicle for the purpose of stealing items from inside it would constitute unlawful entry. That would mean smashed windows would count as proof, and the victim wouldn’t have to come to court. Sounds pretty obvious, right?
The bill, SB916, made it through the Senate’s Public Safety Committee unanimously, but the Senate’s Appropriations Committee killed it. And under the weird way that committee works, bills can die behind closed doors, and the members aren’t under any obligation to say why. Wiener is on the committee but said the group never even discussed it.
“I can’t say for certain,” Wiener said of why his proposal was dumped like the dross from the back seat of a rented Nissan at Fisherman’s Wharf.
“We had essentially no opposition to it,” he said. “But there’s a strong belief not just in the Legislature but by the governor, too, that we should be cautious about expanding criminal liability. It’s a challenge we have to overcome.”
Expand criminal liability? That would imply criminals are being held liable at all. Let’s review. Last year, there were 31,122 reports of car break-ins in San Francisco. Less than 2 percent of those led to arrests. And even less were prosecuted.
Tipping the scales ever so slightly toward the victims of this rampant crime seems like a good idea to me.
Wiener said he’ll probably try again — at some point.
“Sometimes you have to try two or three times,” he said. “That’s just the nature of the Legislature.”
More hot-car news: The good news for the neighbors who live on Lombard Street above the famous twisty-turny block? Car break-ins there remain down after this column featured the unlikely story of a man breaking into a rental van right in front of a Chronicle photographer and me.
The bad news? Car break-ins may be down, but cars are catching fire.
Muriel Angle, who lives on Lombard, sent me photos the other day of a sport utility vehicle ablaze. It seems cars idle so long waiting for their turn to drive down the twisty part that they occasionally overheat.
During the most recent incident, on May 27, the Fire Department quickly responded and nobody was hurt. But Angle is worried.
“It’s just a disaster waiting to happen,” she said. “It’s a situation that’s been going on for years.”
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board recently approved a oneyear trial of prohibiting cars driving north on Hyde Street from turning right down the curvy part of Lombard from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. That was initiated because cable cars on the Powell-Hyde line were getting stuck in traffic.
But Angle thinks the change will mean more cars lining up on Lombard Street itself and having to idle even longer. She’s seen cars backed up as far west as Gough Street, five long city blocks away.
City Hall has been searching for ways to deal with traffic on Lombard for years. Looks like it’s still searching.
She persisted: Mayorelect London Breed wasn’t the only woman to score big in the incredibly tight race for San Francisco mayor.
Maggie Muir, the political consultant who masterminded Breed’s campaign, beat out two political heavyweights who happen to be men: Ace Smith, whose team ran former state Sen. Mark Leno’s campaign, and Eric Jaye, who ran Supervisor Jane Kim’s campaign.
Those who follow San Francisco political news surely know of Smith and Jaye, but they’ve probably never heard of Muir. That’s despite her running campaigns that got Breed elected supervisor, Scott Wiener elected supervisor and then state senator, George Gascón elected district attorney, and a host of ballot measures approved.
“Political consulting sometimes becomes a battle of testosterone,” Wiener said. “Male political consultants get enormous attention, become talking heads, get quoted in the newspapers all the time. Female consultants don’t get the attention and the credit they deserve.”
Wiener said Muir’s nature is to manage frenetic campaigns with a calm, can-do attitude and, well, just get things done.
Tara Moriarty, spokeswoman for Breed’s campaign, said it was fantastic to work with a team made up mostly of women, including the candidate herself, Muir and Marjan Philhour, another political consultant.
“There was just a really cool bonding that went on,” Moriarity said. “We were able to laugh at each other and learn from each other, and it was just a really great experience.”
Muir, apparently fine with not making headlines, didn’t return a call for comment. Guess she had other stuff going on the past few days.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf