DPH

A Condom in Every Wallet: S.F. DPH Seeks Mass Sex Appeal

Mayor Ed Lee Blocks Plan to Let Shuttered Pot Clubs Operate on City Property

The boom and bust cycles that have created jobs and driven up rent and home prices in San Francisco apply to things other than technology. A year ago, there were nearly 30 medical marijuana dispensaries in town; they were paying permit fees and taxes. Now, a year after the federal Justice Depar ... More >>

Erin Brockovich Lawsuit: Carcinogen Still Found in Drinking Water, Environmentalists say

Hexavalent chromium is best known as the chemical compound at the center of Erin Brockovich's 1993 lawsuit against PG&E, which resulted in a $333 million settlement. The chemical had contaminated drinking water supplies in Hinkley, Calif.In 2001, the state legislature sought regulations for hexa ... More >>

Supervisor Wiener Wants Healthy SF to Cover Gender Reassignment Surgery

Healthy San Francisco, the city's attempt at universal healthcare, has helped many local residents who don't have health insurance receive affordable medical treatment. But who is hasn't helped entirely are San Francisco's transgender residents seeking certain medical procedures, such as gender reas ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Is Still too Expensive

Being poor is not so bad. Not in San Francisco at least, where in addition to free housing, city officials are now also handing out taxpayer-subsidized puppies to panhandlers. The disabled, terminally ill, or downright dirt-poor also "enjoy" an advantage over the healthy or the merely struggling to ... More >>

Mayor's Office Says Medical Marijuana Is a "Nuisance" Akin to Liquor Stores, Strip Clubs

It took some doing, but Mayor Ed Lee at last gave medical marijuana the lip service it had been seeking for months with a statement where Lee dubbed state-legal medical cannabis "legitimate," and expressed "concern" over more city-licensed dispensaries risking federal closure from the United States ... More >>

UPDATED: Medical Marijuana Clubs No Longer Asked to Get Rid of Hash, Kief

(UPDATE 4:00 p.m.): The Department of Public Health has rescinded an earlier memo in which it suggested San Francisco's medical cannabis dispensaries not provide products made from concentrated cannabis, including hash and edibles, according to Stephanie Tucker, spokeswoman for the city's Medical Ca ... More >>

Prison Break: Realignment Inmates Enter Rehabilitation in S.F.

(UPDATE 4:00 p.m.): The Department of Public Health has rescinded an earlier memo in which it suggested San Francisco's medical cannabis dispensaries not provide products made from concentrated cannabis, including hash and edibles, according to Stephanie Tucker, spokeswoman for the city's Medical Ca ... More >>

Nothing's Free: S.F. DPH Cracks Down on Foraged Dinners

(UPDATE 4:00 p.m.): The Department of Public Health has rescinded an earlier memo in which it suggested San Francisco's medical cannabis dispensaries not provide products made from concentrated cannabis, including hash and edibles, according to Stephanie Tucker, spokeswoman for the city's Medical Ca ... More >>

Heroin-Overdose-Halting Drug Saves 600 Lives in San Francisco

The Tenderloin is the Narcan hotbed. ​For the last eight years, the city's Department of Public Health has been dealing a drug that can stop a heroin overdose in its tracks -- and it appears to be working. The city has just ticked off its 600th life saved since it started doling out the drug in 2 ... More >>

City Declares OccupySF A Public Health Hazard, Poop, Piss, and Vomit Sully the Plaza

Residents of Justin Herman Plaza​A city health official declared the OccupySF encampment in Justin Herman Plaza an "imminent public health hazard" Tuesday after observing that the site has become a porta potti for protesters, filled with poop, piss, and vomit. Department of Public Health offi ... More >>

Mayor Ed Lee: City Walking "Fine Line" With OccupySF Movement

It will take some kind of corporate power to get these guys to move ​Occupy Oakland protesters are playing chicken with the city officials who today gave them an order to vacate Frank Ogawa Plaza. Yet here in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee intends to continue to "walk a fine line" between letting the ... More >>

Hot Water Is Everything, A Food Insult, Lucky 11, and the Dog Days

The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco food scene. Yesterday we shared that the Hawaiian restaurant Hukilau was closed on Tuesday by the Department of Public Health for reported health hazards. Apparently the owners got to work sprucing the place up, and ... More >>

S.F. Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Generate Only 11 Complaints Over Five Years

That all you got?​Pot clubs. They're boring. You go in, you buy some pot, you leave. For all the clamor with which a new medical cannabis dispensary's opening receives from jumpy John Q Public, with a few notable exceptions, most we see these days resemble dentists' offices, not dens of iniquity ( ... More >>

Chris Daly Cited For Failing to Shout at Smokers

Chris Daly relishes his order from the city to start shouting at people again​In his recently concluded tenure as a public servant, Chris Daly was not one to avoid high-decibel, oft-profane outbursts directed at the public he served. In his current iteration as a barkeep, Daly has been loath to sp ... More >>

Call Ed Lee 'Mayor Pothole' -- 90 Percent Are Filled on Time

Guaranteed fixed in three days or less!​New York's Alphonse D'Amato was once known as "Senator Pothole" for his attention to constituent minutiae. But we wonder whether his attentiveness ever earned a reward like this one: San Francisco has marked a 200 percent improvement when it comes to filling ... More >>

S.F. Bedbugs: So Many Cases, So Few Inspectors

cohabitation ​Like Supervisor Jane Kim, we want to know why there are only two health inspectors dedicated to dealing with the city's 560 SROs, home to most of the bedbug cases. To put that into context: that's one inspector for every 10,000 SRO units.But more than that, we want to know why the De ... More >>

Bad Day: Pot Club Catches Fire, Illegal Plants Revealed, Owners Lose License

​It's been a tough year at the Nor-Cal Herbal Relief Patient's Cooperative on Ocean Avenue.First, the place at 1545 Ocean Ave. caught on fire on Sunday.  Then, while firefighters were responding, they found an illegal pot growing operation in the upstairs bedroom of the building where the coo ... More >>

Six unexpected things S.F. city employees receive bonuses for

​It's been a tough year at the Nor-Cal Herbal Relief Patient's Cooperative on Ocean Avenue.First, the place at 1545 Ocean Ave. caught on fire on Sunday.  Then, while firefighters were responding, they found an illegal pot growing operation in the upstairs bedroom of the building where the coo ... More >>

Female Condom 2 Campaign to Launch in San Francisco for Women and Gay Men

Just slip it in. ​The Female Condom 2 is coming soon to San Francisco to line a vagina -- or anus -- near you. The Department of Public Health will be launching a campaign to promote the use of the Female Condom 2 (known as the FC2 for short) on Valentine's Day.The city received a $100,000 grant f ... More >>

Think You Got Gonorhhea? There's An App For That.

​Looking to ward off burning, warts, or other troubling developments down in the nether regions? Well, now there's an app for that. Thanks to the city's Department of Public Health, you can use your cell phone.   STD411 -- available for download on iPhones -- will ale ... More >>

Suckers! The media want us to think there's a bedbug invasion.

​Looking to ward off burning, warts, or other troubling developments down in the nether regions? Well, now there's an app for that. Thanks to the city's Department of Public Health, you can use your cell phone.   STD411 -- available for download on iPhones -- will ale ... More >>

Axis of Love, 'Medical Cannabis Community Center', Faces Eviction

​When is a pot club not a pot club? When you walk in the establishment in question but cannot buy medical cannabis, that could be a clue. When you can't walk in at all, that says something, too. That's what Shona Gochenaur thinks: The proprietor of Axis of Love, a "medical cannabis community ... More >>

New Leaf, LGBT Mental Health Center, Closing Doors

Sadly, New Leaf is being turned over​Exploding costs of health care benefits and leases will force New Leaf -- a 35-year-old San Francisco center serving the LGBT community with mental health, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS services -- to close in October. The center's board of directors announced ... More >>

The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S.

Spend more. Get less. We're the city that knows how.

Hardball: SEIU Sends Out Newsom-Emblazoned Mailers

Of course you know, this means war​In anticipation over today's pending battle at the Board of Supervisors meeting over whether or not to spend $8 million to save 40, 100, or 500 SEIU jobs at the Department of Public Health, the union has sent out a glossy, campaign-style mailer. And Gavin Newsom ... More >>

Breaking: Board Votes to Save SEIU Jobs -- Until Mid December

'Jetson, until Dec. 15 and possibly thereafter, you are not fired!'​UPDATE, 5:30 P.M.: MAYORAL SPOKESMAN SAYS NO MONEY WILL BE SPENT TO STAVE OFF LAYOFFS; DETAILS BELOWIt'd be cruel to lay off scads of city workers right before Thanksgiving -- so let's think about axing 'em right before Christmas. ... More >>

Restaurant Safety Certification Scandal Started with an Anonymous Tip

The National Restaurant Association is one of a handful of private entities administering testing. City Occupational and Environmental Health Director Rajiv Bhatia told SFoodie that the City Attorney's investigation of DPH food inspectors who were involved with food safety certification frau ... More >>

The Man Who Cried Dust

Christopher Muhammad's fight with Lennar over toxic dust has resulted in a restraining order against him, an accusation that he's a shakedown artist, and grudging respect from his rivals.

Could Authorities Bust the Mission's Street-Food Party? Part II: The Police

jrodstein/FlickrMagic Curry Kart is a fixture of the new vendor sceneLast week we checked in with the city's director of Health Regulatory Programs to determine how aware city officials were of the Mission's exploding unlicensed street-food scene. This week we checked in with police. Early Saturday ... More >>

Gathering Storm

They pile up their stuff to the point of fire danger and rat infestation. A task force is taking on this nearly insurmountable problem.

Proof That Hipsters Will Eat Anything

They pile up their stuff to the point of fire danger and rat infestation. A task force is taking on this nearly insurmountable problem.

Arroz Con Caca

They pile up their stuff to the point of fire danger and rat infestation. A task force is taking on this nearly insurmountable problem.

Brain Storms

A City Hall plan to downgrade S.F.'s only long-term-care facility for the severely mentally ill has critics up in arms

City of Night

Homeless gay youths in San Francisco run an extraordinary risk of HIV infection, according to city statistics. On the street, safety is a matter of economics -- and hope.