Crime is at a 10-year low in San Francisco? Kung Food owned by Rapper Chino Yang was broken into 9th time in less than 4 years

(SAN FRANCISCO) When rapper and restaurateur Chino Yang released his music video, San Francisco Our Home, in November 2023, he expressed his frustration on the crime situation of San Francisco in lyrics by criticizing Mayor London Breed's failure to address the issues. By then his restaurant was broken into 7 times in 3 years. On August 5, 2024, the restaurant was hit for the 9th time in less than 4 years.

When Kung Food on McAllister Street in the Divisadero neighborhood was broken into again in the early morning of August 5, 2024, Yang was traveling in China with his family.

"Am I gonna be holding on to the record of break-ins in the city of San Francisco?" Yang posted a message of his frustration on crime on social media from China.

In fact, Yang was not alone. There were so many small business owners in the city who have gone through very similar situations in the past year and faced the the same challenges of being repeatedly victimized by window smashing at their storefronts, some with significant losses, and some with no other losses except broken windows to be fixed.

"Crime and street homelessness are the lowest they've been in a decade!" Mayor Breed wrote in her candidate statement filed with the Department of Elections for running for re-election in November this year. Many small businesses do not agree with Breed.

Yang immigrated from China with his family in 1989 and grew up in San Francisco. Yang said in the video posted on social media that Kung Food was broken into again by two suspects, one was a Latino and the other was a white man.

Yang also posted the surveillance camera footage on social media which showed the break-in occurred at 5:26:25 am on August 5 at the front glass door and the suspect left Kung Food at 5:27:19am. The whole break-in and burglary only lasted for less than a minute.

"They broke in, smashed the front door, I really need you to help me to tag [Governor] Gavin Newsom, tag, Mayor Breed, tag, Dean Preston, my district Supervisor. We gotta do something about it, right? You all know," said Yang in the video.

"I got broken into 7 plus one. Right now it is the 9th time in less than four years. How much more can we take? Can I take it as a small business? Can my family take it? Imagine my mom has to go through, right? It's heartbreaking. Help me out, tag them all, all right?" Yang was appealing to the public in the video.

Kung Food is a family business managed by Yang, his older sister and mother. The broken glass door was quickly fixed in an afternoon by a Chinese contractor who said he had been very busy fixing the smashed windows and doors for his small business clients. He just finished fixing the windows for one ice-cream shop and another store prior to coming to Kung Food on the same day.

Yang's sister who was feeling distressed said she didn't know what to do except by filing police reports and asking the contractor to come fix the door.

Yang further said in his video posted on social media on August 7 that the crime has been very bad for the entire Divisadero neighborhood. "I just got a call from my sister that the whole Divisadero, the NOPA District, got hit. At least, you know, surrounding business, Eddie's Cafe's ATM got pulled. Green Earth got hit. And my neighbor, next door neighbor, Transfer Market, the owner got held at the gunpoint."

Wind Newspaper had sent inquiries to the offices of Mayor Breed and Superior Preston. Mason Lee from the Office of Mayor Breed responded. "It’s unfortunate this happened and Mayor Breed sympathizes with Mr. Yang and all the small businesses that are victims of crime," Lee wrote.

"While crime is at a ten-year low across the city, Mayor Breed won’t rest until every resident and business owner feels safe. That’s why she has a plan to fully-staff the police department by next year and why she passed Prop E in March to give SFPD more tools to fight crime," stated Lee.

"Thankfully, due to the great work of SFPD, Asian hate crimes have been reduced to nearly zero and car break-ins and other forms of violent crime continue to go down."

Supervisor Preston did not immediately respond with a statement on the crime situation in his district by press time.

Two store owners in the latest break-ins in Chinatown also could not agree with what Breed said about the city's crime rate as 10-year low.

Gum Sum Jewelry on Stockton Street in Chinatown was hit at about 2:30am in the early morning of August 2. Part of the folding security gate at the jewelry store was pulled out and damaged. There was no loss of jewelry or cash in the incident, according to the owners who did not want to be identified.

The jewelry store owner told Wind Newspaper that police officers from Central Police Station, which was only 3 to 4 blocks away, heard of the attempted burglary and arrived quickly to respond to the incident. As a result, the suspects were not able to enter the store.

It was not the first break-in for Gum Sum Jewelry store owners. They said there was another break-in against them earlier in the year. Although no jewelry or money was stolen inside the store, they needed to find contractors to fix the damages which costed money and brought in stress for them.

"We are extremely cautious now one after another of break-ins this year," said the owners. "We have become very stressed and refused to open the door for any individuals who seem to be suspicious or tend to be not customers. We have no choice because of the crime situation in the city nowadays. It is very unfortunate to see our city like this."

About three hours later in the same morning at 5:30am on August 2, Camera Zoom on Grant Avenue was crashed by a vehicle which was driven into the storefront trying to break the steel rolling security gate.

Camera Zoom which has opened in Chinatown for almost 4 decades sells cameras and digital equipment. It was also the second incident in 2024 that Camera Zoom was victimized in a break-in. It occurred several months back this year and was not as serious and violent as the latest incident. The owner was so shocked to see what happened to his business that morning.

According to the information released by Central Police Station, two break-ins on August 2 were not related, based on the suspects' vehicles. Both cases are still under investigation by the burglary details at the police headquarters.

Police officers responded quickly to both incidents. In the Camera Zoom case, police officers witnessed multiple suspects fleeing from the scene in different vehicles.

A white vehicle driven by the suspects to crash into the store was stuck at the store gate and couldn't be moved by suspects who ran away and were picked by other suspects in vehicles and fled.

The white vehicle was later confirmed as a stolen vehicle. A tow truck was called to remove the white car from the store. No suspects have been arrested as of press time.