The cherished Boston bar, famously known as a place where everybody knows your name, has become the latest attraction hit by the issues of homelessness and visible drug use that are troubling numerous cities across America.

Cheers straddles Beacon Hill and Boston Common, the city’s ritziest and best-known neighborhoods, where the median house price is $2.8 million. 

This bar, featured as the exterior for the legendary sitcom that aired from 1982 to 1993, attracts around 2,055 visitors every day, as reported by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

However, both tourists and locals looking forward to enjoying a refreshing drink and the cozy ambiance of this friendly bar will first need to navigate through the deteriorating conditions surrounding the nearby Boston Common.

The public park surrounded by elegant brownstone mansions is now filled with vulnerable people seemingly dealing with alcohol and drug dependencies.

Visibly intoxicated people are slumped over, zombie-like on park benches or asleep states in the grass as tourists, runners and local families stroll past.

Outraged locals say the problem in the elite Massachusetts neighborhood is ‘worse than you think’, telling the Daily Mail the authorities will not intervene if someone is visibly high in the public park.

‘The cops don’t care. They don’t care if they’re smoking or doing drugs,’ Michael, who left Boston a few years ago for nearby Revere, said as he stood outside the bar.

The homelessness crisis has plagued downtown Boston for many years, as people with nowhere to go are regularly seen sleeping on city streets

But the beloved Cheers bar, situated in ritzy, picturesque Beacon Hill, has now become the latest tourist hotspot to be impacted by the crisis

The cast of Cheers is pictured in a publicity shot from the show. Pictured sitting at table are George Wendt (left) and John Ratzenberger (right). Behind them are (left to right) Shelley Long, Ted Danson, Rhea Perlman and Woody Harrelson 

A man walking his dog in the common early in the morning, who declined to share his name, echoed the sentiment, saying, ‘They know nobody will bother them here.’

Locals blame the rising drugs crisis on Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu, who in 2022 backed an initiative to hand out free, taxpayer-funded pipes, syringes and other drug paraphernalia to addicts on the streets in hopes of reducing communicable diseases spread through the use of shared materials.

“Data show that people who use syringe service programs are more likely to enter substance use treatment and stop injecting,” Wu’s office said in part at the time. 

Still, from sunrise to sunset, locals say the Boston Common serves as a haven for the homeless and inebriated.

Some hold signs requesting donations, detailing that they are ‘homeless’ and ‘anything helps’.  

Locals say there’s an unspoken rule in the Common: If you don’t bother anyone, no one will bother you. And for the most part, people abide by it.

‘The park is a safe place for them,’ one local told the Daily Mail. ‘It’s not like the tent cities on Mass and Cass where you’ll see people openly shooting up or find them dead or overdosing in their tents.’

The intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Newmarket, known as ‘Mass and Cass,’ is notorious for open-air drug use.

Mayor Wu has attempted to clear out the crime ridden area by taking down tents, but instead of isolating the drug crisis, locals said the Mass and Cass crackdown has led to spillover into their neighborhoods.

Just across the road from Cheers and the historic 19th century brownstones that dot Beacon Street is the Boston Common – a public park where alcoholics, drug addicts and homeless people spend their days

Some display signs requesting donations that detail how they are ‘homeless’ and ‘anything helps’

A man slumps on a bench beside The Embrace monument on Boston Common

A man with a guitar case, who spent the entire day in the common on both Wednesday and Thursday, appeared unconscious on a park bench as a pedestrian walked by

The man was later seen hunched over on the pavement

Two men lay on blankets near The Embrace monument to Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King on Boston Common

A man sleeps near The Embrace monument on Boston Common

Michael alleges that Beacon Hill – the neighborhood that encapsulates the Common – once regarded as Boston’s safest neighborhood, is no stranger to the crises. 

‘People don’t want [homeless people] around, and they don’t want to see them in the morning when they open up their stores,’ he said. ‘At night they’re mostly in the train stations, hiding away. In the daytime, they’re in the park.’

The Daily Mail witnessed how the park floods with people just after dawn and then empties out as the evening rush hour hits.

Some of the same people who were seen on park benches midday were also spotted lining up outside soup kitchens and shelters around 6pm.

Beacon Hill’s restaurants and bars, including Cheers, remain busy until late in the night. But locals warn against walking through the Common once the sun has set.

Beacon Hill (pictured) has long been considered one of the safest places to live in Boston

Boston Common, situated just next to Beacon Hill, is the oldest city park in the United States

Smiling tourists take selfies outside the iconic Cheers bar as the homelessness crisis plagues the park across the street

Tourists on Segway scooters continue to flood the area each day, with several telling the Daily Mail they did not know how bad the homelessness situation in Boston was

Dozens of Old Town Trolley and duck tours stop in the iconic neighborhood all day long

The Cheers bar is packed at all hours of the day with tourists wanting to see the bar that was made famous by the popular 1980s sitcom

During the day, locals seemingly ignored the man sleeping on the jungle gym, guarded by his barking pit bull, and remained unfazed by the shirtless man in mismatched shoes. 

It seemed like nearly everyone was being ignored, except for Gilbert, who sits in Boston Common everyday, rain or shine. 

He greets passersby with a smile and the daily weather report: ‘High 79, low 59. Cloudy skies with no rain. Good morning!’

Several people stopped to say hello, hand him cash or scan the QR code on his sign asking for donations. A GoFundMe campaign established on his behalf has already amassed more than $1,200.

When asked how he was doing, Gilbert said, he would be attending a funeral the next day, adding, ‘she was 62, a good friend of mine’.

A man sleeps on the jungle gym with a barking pit bull on the ground below

A homeless man sleeps on the children’s playground in Boston Common early Friday morning

A shirtless man wearing mismatched shoes sat on a bench as people walked by

Gilbert (pictured) sits in Boston Common everyday, rain or shine, to greet locals with their daily forecast. On Friday, he was heard shouting, ‘High 79, low 59. Cloudy skies with no rain. Good morning!’

A group of people congregate outside a homeless shelter near Boston Common on Thursday around evening rush hour

A man sleeps on Boston Common as community members gather for the Shakespeare in the Park performance happening just feet away

‘It’s the unfortunate human condition of all of us today – it’s everywhere,’ Troy, who lives in Lexington about 13 miles outside of Boston, told the Daily Mail.

‘We as a society don’t care for the least among us. It’s, as you say, a hell of a juxtaposition standing in a wealthy neighborhood and seeing that.’

His wife, Angie, however, praised city leadership for their efforts to combat the homelessness crisis. 

‘We have to give Boston its props though. At least here if someone comes, like a mother with kids, saying they have no place to stay, the state and city attempts to provide somewhere for them,’ she said.

‘Massachusetts, as a shelter state, is better than others,’ Troy added. 

Some cities across Massachusetts, including Brockton and Lowell, have put ordinances in place banning camping on public property.

Boston also has an unlawful camping ordinance, but it ‘only applies to encampments located in public space maintained by the City of Boston when emergency shelter space is available,’ the city website states. 

The ordinance does not apply to federal, state or private property. 

A Beacon Hill resident shared a photo in a community Facebook group earlier this week of a man slumped over in a wheelchair with an umbrella over his shoulders on a street corner in the ritzy neighborhood

The intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Newmarket (pictured), known as ‘Mass and Cass,’ is notorious for open-air drug use

In July, Mayor Wu said she disagrees with calls from residents to deploy the National Guard on the crime stricken Mass and Cass area, and instead announced a $200,000 grant to fund a task force dedicated for helping people find shelter.

‘We know that this is, again, a complex, interconnected set of issues,’ Wu told WBUR on July 29, admitting the homelessness and drug use conditions in Boston – specifically at Mass and Cass – are ‘not acceptable’.

‘We cannot tolerate or accept that Boston should be a city where people have to live outside on the street or where there will be pockets of outdoor, congregate drug use.’