The Starlight Market. See below for videos of other corners
Starlight Market at Ellis and Jones is among four corners filled with drug users, dealers, and other substance abusers. It’s only two blocks from the Hilton but this intersection is a different world. Longtime businesses in the area are struggling to survive.
Why does this out of control drug scene remain despite years of complaints? Three main reasons.
The Tenderloin
First, it’s located in the Tenderloin. Despite City Hall’s insistence that the city does not use the Tenderloin as a drug containment zone, the scene at Ellis and Jones and other corners of the Tenderloin says otherwise. No other neighborhood has four corners of open air drug markets.
Second, three of the four corners are controlled by owners who never complain to police about drug activities. The exception is Sam Patel, owner of the Mentone Hotel at 387 Ellis. On the corner under the Mentone is the legendary Cinnabar bar. Patel has constantly requested city help to clear the area bordering Cinnabar. He often gets Jones Street temporarily cleared, but drug activities soon resume.
Patel has cut the Cinnabar’s rent in half due to these problems. That the Mentone Hotel is an all-private bath Permanent Supportive Housing site has not given it any added protection from sidewalk drug users.
A video taken on February 2, 2026 shows how drug activities have taken over the corner. According to Patel, “This goes on day and night. The Cinnabar operators are fed up and are thinking about leaving. This is a legacy business that has been open for 40 plus years.”
Across from the Cinnabar at 401 Ellis is the former historic bar, Jonell’s Cocktail Lounge. Much of William T. Vollmann’s best selling 2013 book, Whores for Gloria, is set in Jonell’s. Like many San Francisco bars, Jonell’s did not survive Covid. While closed it became a perfect spot for drug activities. It reopened as Family Corner Discounts around February 2024. The market was soon closed by the City Attorney for illegal activities. Here’s what the City Attorney found at Family Corner Discounts:
In January 2025, a San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) officer saw people crowded around a gambling machine in the store, and saw an individual walk in and show the clerk a container of laundry detergent concealed under his jacket, indicating a possible fencing operation. The following day, undercover officers used the gambling machines at the store and observed five other gambling machines.
Later that month, SFPD executed a search warrant and seized six electronic gambling machines, $4,456 of cash, a payment ledger, foreign tobacco products, merchandise on display for sale with CVS price stickers, and 50.8 grams of methamphetamine located under a display shelf. The store also sold drug paraphernalia, including hundreds of glass pipes commonly used to smoke methamphetamine and crack cocaine, and small plastic baggies used to store narcotics.
The former owner of Family Corner Discounts also owns Starlight Grocery at 402 Ellis across the street. On December 11 2024 JJ Smith posted videos about the Starlight corner. Smith described it as a place that has seen “multiple assaults, robberies, murders and mayhem.”
Many will find what Smith shows happening to be shocking. And to warrant a major police crackdown. But nothing has changed. It’s the worst of the four corners.
John Dung Quoc has operated the Pho Tan Hoa restaurant for over 25 years at 431 Jones just up from the Starlight. His business has taken a terrible hit in recent years. Potential customers understandably avoid walking by the Starlight Market drug scene. Quoc’s landlord never raises the rent, but absent police intervention this could be the next legacy Vietnamese restaurant in the Tenderloin to close.
The fourth drug-filled corner is under the Riviera Hotel at 420 Jones. Whoever runs the Riviera does not complain to police about the drug activities bordering their property. Here’s a photo from 2024 that shows the crowd of daily substance abusers on the corner.
No Urban Alchemy Presence
We are always told how complicated it is to close open-air drug markets. But does anyone believe Ellis and Jones would be dominated by substance abusers and dealers if Urban Alchemy were monitoring these blocks?
City Hall has allowed the Ellis and Jones drug scene to persist without consistent interventions. Recently Glide Ambassadors were funded to address problems in the area given its proximity to the church. After I passed the crowd at Starlight I asked an ambassador what they are doing to clear the area of drug activities. He told me, “we can offer services but can’t get them to move.”
This raises a question: Why is the city paying ambassadors if they make no difference in improving public safety on sidewalks? Does budget-starved San Francisco really need to be paying people who keep sidewalk drug users in their place?
A Broader Negative Impact
When guests at the Hilton look down Jones Street you can be sure that most decide to stay away from the Tenderloin. Tourists don’t want to navigate through the Ellis/Jones drug scene. Nor do local residents.
That’s why allowing four corners of Ellis and Jones to be controlled by the drug trade hurts all Tenderloin businesses. It leads customers to stay away from the entire area.
Mayor Lurie said at the recent ribbon cutting for reviving Little Saigon that the city can’t comeback without the Tenderloin coming back. A good place to signal the Tenderloin’s comeback would be closing the four corners of drug activities at Ellis and Jones.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.