Following Louis Vuitton Burglary, SF’s Oldest Cannabis Dispensary Questions Police Inaction

Surveillance footage of the fifth burglary to take place at BASA, a cannabis dispensary on Grove Street in San Francisco, depicted officers remaining in their car as suspects exited the business with stolen property in hand.

This burglary occurred in the early morning hours of Nov. 16, days before the high-profile burglary at Louis Vuitton in Union Square the evening of Nov. 19.

To Anisa Alazraie, the inaction reflected a lack of care for businesses with deeper roots in San Francisco. According to BASA’s website, it has been locally owned and operated since 2003, making it the second oldest dispensary in the country and the oldest in San Francisco.

“We feel that we are very close with the community and that we care, so it’s sad to not see that care reciprocated when we were in a time of need,” Alazraie, whose father owns the dispensary, said to NBC Bay Area.

Officers responding to the burglary of Louis Vuitton, in which over a dozen people ran off with merchandise in hand, were seen shattering the windows of a suspect’s car and dragging a person into the street.

“That stung,” Alazraie said of the contrast she saw between the sense of urgency present in police responses to the burglary of her father’s shop in comparison to that of the luxury goods retailer.

Following the burglary of BASA, a crime report was made, but no one was arrested.

The lack of police response angers Alazraie. “I was like, ‘why aren’t people responding, why aren’t police working hard to keep our business safe? To keep our streets safe? To deter or intervene when a crime is in progress?’” she said.

The SFPD reached out to the Alazraie family to facilitate a complaint to the department of police accountability.