A San Francisco Burger King location is the latest institution to jump on the 24/7 classical music bandwagon. In an effort to dissuade loiterers and drug traffic, the restaurant is now playing day-and-night orchestral audio from speakers installed on the outside of the building.
As we previously reported, the round-the-clock classical music tactic was recently employed by the city of Lake Worth, Florida for similar reasons. The city claimed the maneuver was meant to reduce crime in the area.
According to SFGate, the Burger King franchise at the junction of Eighth and Market streets enacted the instrumental bombardment due to a steady flow of vagrants inhabiting the surrounding sidewalks. Reportedly, the crowd would often leave trash and drug paraphernalia littered about the area.
The restaurant is across the street from a busy Bay Area Rapid Transit station. BART commuter Craig Westbrooke told ABC 7 News that "usually you can barely walk by. There's grocery carts, blankets full of merchandise that's not theirs, drug use."
San Franciscan David Allen told the station that the musical regulation appears to be working: "There use to be a mob that would hang out there. And now there may be just one or two people."
However, as with the Lake Worth situation, the music also serves to disrupt nearby neighbors and merely shifts the affected homeless faction to another street corner. As Reginald Dillard Sr. told the SFGate, the blaring audio kept him up at night:
"For people who do live on the street for whatever reason, this can be very distracting, keep people up at night."
In the aforementioned ABC 7 News report, city resident Jeff McMillian facetiously asked, "I can't play my music outside after 10 o'clock, can I?"
Apparently, even nearby hotel guests were starting to complain about the loud music. The same news report also states that the Burger King now turns down the music from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. in order to give the hotel's patrons some quiet time.
Let us know what you think of the San Francisco Burger King's audio barrage in the comments section below.
