San Francisco’s new DA recently referred to the “lawlessness” she inherited in a city that has become infamous for its deteriorating quality of life.

Writing a year ago for the Hoover Institution, Lee Ohanian had this to say:

San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime, which makes the city more dangerous than 98 percent of US cities, both small and large. To put this in perspective, Compton, California, the infamous home of drug gang turf wars, and which today remains more dangerous than 90 percent of all US cities, is almost twice as safe as San Francisco.
Who would have thought that San Francisco would have twice the crime rate of Compton, the latter still a major clearing house for cocaine distribution? This seeming impossibility is what happens when city governance fails spectacularly on just about every important dimension.

But part of the city’s government is on the job.

The San Francisco Chronicle:

San Francisco officials are investigating a complaint alleging that Twitter illegally converted part of its headquarters into bedrooms.
The complaint was filed to the city’s 311 service by a user on the social media network itself, after Forbes reported that some conference rooms had been converted into “modest bedrooms featuring unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors.”
Unnamed Twitter employees told Forbes that an estimated four to eight bedrooms per floor were installed in the 1355 Market St. building. The Chronicle was unable to independently verify the claims. City records show that there have been no applications to convert any portion of the building to residential use.
Twitter owner Elon Musk appeared to confirm that the company had installed beds and criticized Mayor London Breed for scrutinizing the company rather than focusing on the city’s drug crisis.
“So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities @LondonBreed!?” Musk posted on Twitter, linking to a Chronicle story on the reported fentanyl overdose of a 10-month-old baby.
The city’s Department of Building Inspection is seeking to conduct a site inspection for potential violations and has reached out to the building manager for more information. “We investigate all complaints. We need to make sure the building is being used as intended. There are different building code requirements for residential buildings, including those being used for short-term stays. These codes make sure people are using spaces safely,” said Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection.

I’m certainly no expert on San Francisco’s building codes, but to deem these arrangements as turning part of Twitter’s HQ into a space for residential use seems somewhat draconian. That said, this set-up does appear more substantial than the single fold-up bed kept in a filing room in an office in which I once worked. This grim option was for the use of employees, some of whom worked very long and anti-social hours. It was generally (and understandably) rejected in favor of a couch.

It’s hard not to think that San Francisco’s sudden enthusiasm for enforcing the rules owes more to a wish to use some bureaucratic harassment to punish Twitter for the ideological shift in how it is now being run than to any safety considerations.

The fact, however, that some of those camping out at Twitter have reportedly been brought in from other Musk companies appears to be raising some eyebrows still further, particularly among a number of investors in Tesla (which is, of course, publicly quoted). Tesla stock is far off its earlier highs. That is true of the tech sector generally, but the idea that Musk is being badly distracted by Twitter probably won’t be helping sentiment.