Jane on Larkin patrons dine as a man carries his belongings along the Cedar Street alley in the Lower Polk neighborhood.

Good morning, Bay Area. It’s Thursday, Sept. 22, and the first inflation relief checks will be mailed out soon. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

A decade ago, architect Bonnie Bridges was one of the Lower Polk neighborhood’s biggest champions, purchasing an 8,000-square-foot space and leasing the bottom floor to cafe Jane on Larkin. She said it felt like the area was “on an upswing.”

But nowadays, things are much different. Bridges sees violence in the neighborhood regularly, and her architecture office and the cafe have been broken into three times in the past 20 months.

“It’s just so incredibly sad, every day, to come into work and experience this level of lawlessness,” Bridges said.

Nearly all the small shops and galleries on the stretch of Larkin Street north of Geary have closed. The neighborhood’s alleyways are regularly lined with tents, used for unhoused people and hideouts for drug dealers.

And Lower Polk doesn’t get the resources that have flooded the Tenderloin during the pandemic. It’s what Chris Shulman, executive director of the Lower Polk Street Community Benefits District, calls “a no-man’s-land.”

Read more from J.K. Dineen.

Rechung Fujihira, co-founder and CEO of the co-working space Box Jelly, has seen lots of remote workers in his home state.

The pandemic allowed many workers to go remote, sending some to different cities and states to experience life in a way that wasn’t possible ever before. Hawaii became a popular destination, and brought many mainland U.S. residents to its breathtaking shores.

“I’ll never really look at an island vacation destination … the same way again,” said Jaime Schilling, who after being able to work remotely, left Seattle last year for six weeks in Hawaii.

The new arrivals provided some aid for the archipelago’s ailing economy when tourism was shut down. But the outsiders — many from San Francisco — also affected life in other ways from buying up all the $5 Costco rotisserie chickens to helping increase already unaffordable housing prices, writes Chase DiFeliciantonio.

• After 92 days at sea, Marin kayaker reaches Hawaii, the second person ever to do so.

After the past few rainy days, which even brought snow to the Sierra, a high pressure system will build its way into California and raise temperatures from San Francisco to Reno by five to seven degrees. That means despite feeling like fall, more typical warmer September temperatures will return.

On the coast, the day will start in the 60s with fog, and climb into the 70s later in the day. Inland residents can expect temperatures in the mid-80s by Thursday afternoon.

Read the full weather forecast.

• September storm coated Tahoe in snow. Is unusual winter weather here to stay?

Jodie Morgan (left) and Jeff Morgan, owners of kosher winery Covenant Wines, taste samples from winemaker Jonathan Hajdu (right) in Berkeley.

Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish New Year, starts on Sunday. In the Bay Area, there are two kosher wineries, but the owners want to distance themselves from the word “kosher.”

“Let’s not keep propagating the same self-fulfilling prophecy that wine produced under kosher supervision is only for Jews,” said Ernie Weir, owner of Napa’s only kosher winery, Hagafen Cellars. “Every day we see people in our tasting room that don’t give a hoot that the wine is kosher.”

The selection of kosher wines available in the U.S. has expanded immensely beyond sweet wines made from table grapes — most notably, Manischewitz — in the past 20 years, writes Esther Mobley. Yet, kosher winemakers continue to fight the stigma of the sweet wine.

Oakland Council Member Loren Taylor has received a valuable endorsement.

• Oakland mayor’s race: Mayor Libby Schaaf and other Northern California mayors have endorsed this candidate. Also: Where do Oakland’s mayoral hopefuls stand on a new A’s ballpark? From Scott Ostler: Step up America, A’s owner John Fisher needs you to fund his new ballpark.

• Do you qualify? Here’s when the first batch of California inflation relief checks will go out.

• New report: Bay Area transit agencies pledged to make sweeping reforms during pandemic. Are they doing it? Also: The first renderings for BART’s second Transbay Tube have emerged. Here’s where it could go.

• Pandemic Problems: I think I had COVID — but I’m not sure. What does that mean for getting the new booster?

• Stuck in place: They wanted to age at home. Now these seniors are trapped there.

• No litter left behind: A climber-led cleanup in Yosemite National Park is going national this year. Also: Yes, bumblebees may be fish, California Supreme Court agrees.

• An “authentic voice”: Ruth Gottstein, champion of Coit Tower depicted in one of its famous murals, dies at 100.

Panther Skate member Keiyana “Kei-Kei” Kemp, 39, at DeFremery Park in Oakland.

Roller skating became a popular pastime in the past couple of years. Google searches about skating jumped more than five times across the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic.

The pandemic pushed skaters from indoor rinks to outdoor areas, and in Oakland, they regularly gather in parking lots, on basketball courts and around Lake Merritt. But policing, noise complaints, sharing spaces with more traditional sports, and having to pay for permits has made it a challenge to find a place to skate.

“If you’re in the roller skating scene, you’re aware of the struggle we’ve had getting a permanent space,” said Donna Milich, an Oakland-based skater who has been involved in the sport for 30 years.

Read more about the West Oakland skaters fighting for a place to roll.

Bay Briefing is written by Kellie Hwang and Anna Buchmann and sent to readers’ email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact the writers at kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com and anna.buchmann@sfchronicle.com.

Kellie Hwang is the engagement reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. Before returning to the Bay Area, she held roles as transportation reporter and trending news reporter at the IndyStar in Indianapolis. Previously, Kellie covered dining news and trends, visual arts, events and nightlife for the Arizona Republic, and freelanced for the former Contra Costa Times. Kellie also serves as co-director of the Asian American Journalists Association Features Forum. She is a University of Washington graduate.