ANAHEIM, Calif.—Looking through the slightly tinted window glass of what was labeled as a hydroponics store in the City of Anaheim, California, shards of drywall littered the floor of the almost empty interior of the showroom floor. Just hours before a Wednesday morning, the Anaheim Police Department raided the location and put a stop to an illegal gambling operation that resulted in several arrests and the confiscation of gambling machines. On the 1.5-mile stretch of Beach Boulevard that runs through Anaheim, the city’s police officers respond to over 2,000 calls a year—a growing number with “drug decriminalization, early prison release and other statewide trends” in recent years, according to the Winter 2022 issue of Anaheim Magazine¬, a community publication by the city administration. Officers have been prioritizing their work on the boulevard “because they know that there’s a higher likelihood that they’ll be able to interact directly with active criminals …