Reopening Alcatraz as prison could impact popular tourist spot in San Francisco

Alcatraz Landing is where tourists take a boat to visit Alcatraz Island, which was once a notorious federal prison that housed infamous criminals like Al Capone. Today, it is a national park and one of the most popular tourist attractions in the San Francisco Bay. “As I’m here today, looking around it seems like this is a great tourist attraction and it's making a lot of money for San Francisco in the Bay Area and I'd hate to see that go away if... if there was a different option that might have been better than reopening this prison instead of closing it as a national park,” said Nick Pernell, who decided to go visit Alcatraz before it could be closed off to tourists. However, President Donald Trump wants to, again, turn it into a federal prison to house the nation's most violent criminals. Alcatraz Prison closed in 1963 because it was falling apart, and it was too expensive to transfer prisoners there and to bring in supplies by boat. President Trump has offered few details about the plan, which is likely to be costly and face local opposition. “I think it's a waste of money, way too expensive, hopefully it's just all talk and not serious. Infrastructure, it'd be too hard to get potable water, infrastructure, sewer there, employees there to build it. It just wouldn't be effective of use of the taxpayer's money,” Randy Doolittle, who was visiting San Francisco from Portland, Oregon, said. “I like tough on criminals, but I don't like wasting money on stupid ideas. Which is, I think, it would be a stupid idea to build out in the desert and be a little cheaper than building an island that people wanna use as tourist items.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.