At SF Mayor Lurie’s Chinatown Party, Dancing, Fireworks and a Promise of Unity

After a day of inaugural celebrations, San Francisco’s newly sworn-in Mayor Daniel Lurie spent Wednesday night dining with Chinatown community leaders while residents celebrated on Grant Avenue with music, fireworks and dragon dances.

Lurie’s decision to spend his first official night in office with Chinatown residents and community leaders reflected his promises on the campaign trail to the city’s Asian American voters. He pledged to increase public safety, boost police department staffing following upticks in anti-Asian violence and bring more staffers with Asian backgrounds to City Hall.

Lurie’s task will be to prove he can stay in touch with the diverse needs of Asian San Franciscans.

“As we speak, the San Francisco Police Department and sheriff’s department are rapidly shifting resources and personnel to bring drug dealers to justice and clean up our streets,” Lurie said in his inaugural address on Wednesday.

Chinese Americans have long played a critical role in San Francisco politics and the city’s identity as a bastion of progress and compassion, advocating for integrated schools, affordable housing and public safety, especially after the pandemic when anti-Asian hate crimes spiked.

It’s also a fast-growing electorate. The Asian population had the highest growth rate of any ethnicity in San Francisco from 2010 to 2020, according to U.S. Census data. Chinese residents account for nearly 22% of the city’s population.

Lurie has already hired several staffers to help him bridge cultural divides, including Han Zhao, a political strategist for Lurie’s campaign who will be the director of public affairs; Paul Yep, a former San Francisco police commander who will be the director of public safety; and Kit Lam, who was the Asian American and Pacific Islander political director for Lurie’s campaign and who was previously an organizer of the school board recall in 2022. He will serve as a press liaison between the mayor’s office and AAPI communities.

Lurie, founder of the nonprofit Tipping Point and heir to the Levis Strauss clothing fortune, campaigned as a political outsider fed up with dysfunction and corruption in City Hall.

He had never held elected office before but convinced voters that his background in nonprofit work would position him well to bring new ideas to City Hall. Campaign contributions soared past $62 million, topped by Lurie, who raised roughly $16 million — about half of which was self-funded — making his run the most expensive in the city’s history.

At Wednesday’s night market, hundreds of residents packed the streets of Chinatown to eat and dance to electronic music by San Francisco-born electronic music producer, Zhu.

“I just got off of work over at Equinox and came because Zhu was performing, but I also came here to support our new Mayor Daniel Lurie,” said Mason Maes, who lives in Noe Valley. “It’s great to see all these residents get together.”

Elizabeth Wang, a Marina resident, came because she was hoping to learn more about Lurie and to have fun with friends.

“I’m just here for the vibes. I can’t say I know much about [Lurie] since he’s new to government,” Wang said. “But having a party here in Chinatown means a lot.”

Others at the event, who didn’t vote for Lurie and had skepticism about his wealthy background, said they’re waiting to see what type of change his administration will bring.

“We weren’t Daniel Lurie fans, but we love this city and hope it gets better,” said Tiny Harris, who was chasing her toddler around the market.

She said she voted for Aaron Peskin partly because he opposed sweeps of homeless encampments and supported housing and behavioral health solutions over law enforcement to address street homelessness.

“But out of all the mayoral candidates, we could have done worse, so I’m thankful for that,” Harris said.

Before the festivities in Chinatown, Lurie spent the day flanked by family and friends as he walked through the Tenderloin, rode a cable car to Ghirardelli Square and took his oath of office from City Hall.

In his inaugural address, the new mayor was blunt about the challenges facing the city — from a nearly $900 million budget deficit to homelessness and clean streets — and implored residents to respond with hope and action.

“A problem of this magnitude requires us to make some painful decisions and rethink the way we operate. We need to stop spending more than we can afford,” Lurie said on Wednesday during his address. “We need to prioritize essential services and make the investments that are critical to getting San Francisco up and running again.”

He also unveiled emergency plans to tackle drugs and homelessness, among other policy announcements. He said that the package of emergency ordinances will go before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, and with an expedited approval process, certain plans could go into effect in about a month.

Lurie’s emergency plans would also increase nighttime operations for law enforcement targeting outdoor drug use and sales, particularly around United Nations Plaza and Market Street, according to a policy brief from Lurie’s communications team.

Lurie is also asking the supervisors to ease restrictions around procurement and grant-making and to authorize the use of private funding to help finance his plans to build over 1,000 emergency shelter beds and open up a new 24/7 crisis drop-in center during his first six months in office.

“This is truly a new era of cooperation and mutual respect between City Hall, the Board of Supervisors, law enforcement and the thousands of city employees working on the front lines,” Lurie said.