Bizarre vandalism incident halts SF Board of Supervisors meeting
San Francisco City Hall building. A vandalism incident at a Comcast cable box near City Hall led to a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting ending early on Tuesday.
Peter Unger/Getty ImagesA Tuesday meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was re-scheduled after a Comcast cable box a few blocks from City Hall was vandalized, according to multiple reports.
The box is located on Hyde and Geary streets. Online images posted by NBC Bay Area show that the box’s cover had been removed, exposing the cables inside. A spokesperson for Comcast told The San Francisco Standard that a fiber enclosure in the box had been “completely destroyed.”
“A fiber enclosure in an underground vault was completely destroyed, disrupting services to customers served by that portion of Comcast’s network,” the spokesperson told the Standard. “Comcast is working quickly and diligently to restore services for customers impacted by the damage to our network.”
#BreakingNews This is the site of vandalism that caused a video interruption at San Francisco City Hall, and prompted the Board of Supervisors to postpone its meeting.
According to a source, someone opened up a Comcast vault on Geary in the Tenderloin, and mangled cables inside. pic.twitter.com/QRaNvU1XvX— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) April 11, 2023
Meetings of the Board of Supervisors are broadcast on Comcast cable channels 26 and 78, and because the meetings are supposed to be broadcast to the public, the supervisors had to postpone their meeting — which was scheduled for 2 p.m. on Tuesday — to Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m.
“Some view property crime as minor. It’s not. Garage break-ins, auto vandalism, etc., have real impacts,” state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote on Twitter after the incident. “Here, property crime literally shut down the Board of Supervisors, in addition to interrupting internet for some San Franciscans (who may rely on internet for work).”
An SFGATE request for more information sent to the San Francisco Police Department was not returned in time for publication.
The destruction of the box in the city’s downtown area comes amid a broader discussion in San Francisco about crime. On Monday, the Downtown Whole Foods Market at 1185 Market St. announced that it would be closing this week, citing concerns over crime in the area. It’s closure comes a little more than one year after it opened.
