It’s 8 a.m. in MacArthur Park.
A local shopkeeper hoses down his front stoop, washing away the layer of debris that accumulated overnight.
As water strikes the already hot asphalt, steam rises and mingles with clouds of smoke coming from a group of people slumped on Alvarado Street. A mother shuttles her two young children past the huddle, weaving through dozens of vendors to reach the playground.
The majority Latino, working-class community has adapted to life around one of the largest fentanyl markets in Los Angeles — but not without paying a price.
“The worst thing about MacArthur Park is the fentanyl epidemic,” says Rafael, a street vendor who sells kitchenware and declined to share his last name. “I’ve seen people die in the park. I’ve seen people sacrifice everything for a little euphoria.”
In the past three years, MacArthur Park has become a hub for fentanyl sales and consumption – a phenomenon driven, in part, by an underground trade in shoplifted goods that people use to make money for the drug. Local businesses now battle a spike in theft, while open-air drug use deters residents in the densely populated neighborhood of Westlake from enjoying their largest park.
People frequently overdose and die.
“I used to go down the street to go buy a cup of coffee in the mornings,” says Sylvia, a Spanish speaker who also did not want to her last name published because of safety concerns. “But now, I don’t do that because I need to cross an alleyway and there is too much trash and it is full of people doing drugs.”
Her family has run a vitamin and medicine stand inside a swap meet by MacArthur Park for more than 25 years.
“Even the common people, Latinos that live in this area, are scared because they have been hurt,” she says in Spanish. “There are a lot of crazy people out here.”
Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association, receives frequent shoplifting complaints from businesses near the…
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