Ad campaign tries to put the squeeze on panhandlers

SAN FRANCISCO -- The advertisements that showed up on taxis and buses in San Francisco this week are meant to be as provocative as they are purposeful.

"Today we rode a cable car, visited Alcatraz and supported a drug habit," reads one featuring a tourist couple at Fisherman's Wharf.

Another ad depicting a girl in pigtails reads: "Today I adopted a cat, gave some change and shut down my corner grocer."

The attention-grabbing ads sponsored by the Hotel Council of San Francisco are the latest effort to put the squeeze on panhandling, a problem in the city since the Barbary Coast days.

Hoteliers say San Francisco has such a reputation for being soft on the homeless that they are coming from all over to beg, spoiling the city's image as a world-class travel destination. The $65,000 We Want Change campaign is meant to discourage residents, workers and visitors from putting money into all the outstretched cups and open hands.

Some homeless people resent the way they are portrayed in the ads.

"I think that's really cold. I know a whole bunch of people who aren't on drugs or alcohol," said Carol Oyama, 60, from her customary perch on Market Street. "People give me $20s, $5s, $10s and they give it to me because they want to, not because they have to."

Mayor Willie Brown, who criticized the hotel council last year when it sponsored billboards questioning the city's efforts to deal with homelessness, believes the campaign is misguided.

"Negative publicity is just a poor way to drum up business, and this seems to be falling on one's own sword," said his spokesman, P.J. Johnston.

But the hotel executives say tourists already know the city's streets are crowded with beggars.

"It's been a major complaint of groups coming in, saying, 'Why don't you do something about this?"' said Robert Begley, the trade group's executive director. "When we're on sales trips, the first question we normally get today is, 'What has happened to San Francisco?"'

For 10 years in a row, San Francisco has been named the best U.S. city to visit by the well-heeled readers of Conde Nast Traveler. Along with New York, it consistently ranks among the top two destinations in Travel & Leisure magazine's annual reader poll.

But the number of people attending conferences in San Francisco dropped to its lowest level in more than eight years in 2001, the last year for which statistics are available. There is little doubt the city's hospitality industry is hurting.

Some wonder whether it's fair to blame panhandlers for hotel vacancies when the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation's weak economy and other factors have led to similar declines in other U.S. cities.

Panhandlers have "always been a feature of San Francisco," said Teddy Witherington, who runs one of the city's biggest tourist draws, the annual Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade. "It existed when times were good in 2000 and people were so busy making money they never thought to do anything about it."

According to Witherington, the city risks losing something more than panhandlers if people take the hoteliers' message to heart. He said one of the reasons people visit San Francisco in such large numbers is because of its culture of acceptance and tolerance.