announced<\/a> in January and touted as \u201ca major step to get drugs and drug users off the streets\u200b\u201d\u200b.\u00a0<\/p>\nLurie, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, police chief Derrick Lew, and Director of Health Daniel Tsai also received the memo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Representatives from the mayor\u2019s office and sheriff\u2019s department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goal of the center, officials said, was to create an alternative to jail and hospitalization for people who have been arrested for being under the influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The plan was for police officers to detain and transport intoxicated people to the Rapid Enforcement Support Evaluation and Triage Center, where they would then enter the custody of the sheriff\u2019s department for up to 23 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the memo, the sheriff\u2019s department has said that arrestees will neither be held in cells, nor physically restrained from leaving.<\/p>\n
But they also won\u2019t be told they are free to leave, the city attorney\u2019s memo said. Rather, the arrestees, who are still in custody, will be warned that they will be re-arrested and taken to either the jail or hospital if they leave before they are sober.<\/p>\n
State regulations require that a \u201clocal detention facility\u201d or \u201ctemporary holding facility\u201d have trained staff, safety checks, health care services, detoxification treatment, and food services. The city also has \u201cconstitutional obligations\u201d to provide adequate medical care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the center does not meet those standards, there will be a \u201cvery high risk\u201d that a court would conclude that the city cannot detain individuals there, the memo concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Francisco\u2019s \u201cfailure to comply with State law\u201d and \u201cnon-compliance with standards for detention facilities\u201d could become an issue if someone detained at the center sues the city for an injury or unlawful detention at a facility that \u201cis not permitted to be used as a detention facility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this legal risk,\u201d Voss added, there are arguments that the city does not need to comply with state standards as long as it meets constitutional requirements.<\/p>\n
Staff from the Board of State and Community Corrections have advised the sheriff that the center is likely not a \u201clocal detention facility,\u201d the memo said. The city attorney\u2019s office, however, cautioned that this was not a formal assessment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The facility could alternatively be considered an \u201cauthorized sobering center\u201d that provides outpatient detox treatment if it were to be certified by another state body, the California Department of Health Care Services. The memo indicated this has not yet happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The sheriff\u2019s department has described the center as a \u201cnon-licensed sobering facility\u201d that \u201cmay not provide the same level of medical care as a jail or other detention facility,\u201d the memo said. Thus, in their view, it is not required to comply with legal requirements of either a detention facility or an authorized sobering center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city attorney\u2019s memo, however, didn\u2019t give that much credence: \u201cIt is still very likely a court would conclude that the Center is a detention facility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Io Yeh Gilman contributed reporting. <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco city attorney\u2019s office on Monday warned top officials that the mayor\u2019s proposed \u201csobering center\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-172731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}