7-Eleven NIMBY Responds

From SFKayak:

This is not the typical franchise. 7 Eleven require that 50% of the earnings of the store be handed over to the 7/11 corporation. Since 71% of this company is foreign owned I don't see how it can be called a local business.

Typically 7/11 crimes are robberies involving the use of a gun. Employees of this stores have been shot and killed. Not sure why 7/Elevens have been such targets of these types of crimes but it's a major concern.

It was the cafes that sounded the alert to the neighborhood. The cafes are all owner operated and they know that 7/Elevens sell more coffee than any other beverage they sell.

This area has 14 bars and clubs (4 block area). The so-called NIMBYs have worked with those that sell alcohol to work towards a safer neighborhood, a neighborhood that has suffered from gang and random acts of violence. Shootings, stabbings, brawls etc. none of which is good for business or the people that live in and near Mission St.

So what has worked to reduce some of the violence in this neighborhood? Making sure that people go home once the clubs and bars close at 2 am. The street closes down except for Safeway. The 7 Eleven won't be closing at 11 as the name implies. It will stay open all night long. It will become a destination for those that have had too much to drink or are interested in continuing to party (based on what has gone on in other neighborhoods). In an effort to keep the peace neighbors and merchants don't want a 7/11. Anything but 7/11. We're willing to work with him to come up with a better business plan. A business that does serve the neighborhood like he claims to want to do.

BTW the owner lives in Marin and owns a Shell station in Sausalito that has a car wash. His 76 station in SF used to be an independent station which offered full service auto repairs. Now it will offer fast food and plenty of trash. The Burger King down the street is home to huge numbers of rats because of the trash (leftover food).

If wanting the real local merchants to be successful and desiring a neighborhood with reduced violence is NIMBY I'd be proud to wear that label. It was only a few months ago when this very location was the site of a drive-by spray of bullets.

BTW there is no Whole Foods in this neighborhood. The businesses are owned by a wide diversity of people serving foods from all over the world. Large numbers of day laborers frequent the Latino bakery (International). 7/11 wants that business so they are targeting that population by placing free construction magazines to entice them into 7/Elevens and learning about “the tastes” of Latino male construction workers.

I've lived here all my adult life. Raised a family here and will die here. It's not pac hts nor do I want it to be that. However, I do want folks to be safe on the street. The 76 station owner bought the station a year ago and he is clueless about what he's getting himself into.

And finally, the CU permit process is in place to give neighborhoods the opportunity to weigh-in on issues such as this. The question is asked: is it desirable, needed, or necessary and merchants/neighbors don't want or need it.

For once, I actually agree with an SFgate commenter:

This poor man is about to lose his business because some self-proclaimed guardians think they've got the world figured out. 

Comments (3)

With no due respect to the lying nimby - go fuck your self. You are stealing a person’s business for some bullshit vague vision that even you yourself can’t explain. Take your bullshit and move to fucking Santa Cruz. We don’t need shit like you in our neighborhood. You might as well rob the man and steal his life’s work and shove it down your artisan children’s throats, you nimbyfuck. who the fuck are you to tell him how to run his business and “work out his businessplan?”

please choke on a vegan donut and I hope your kids grow up to be heroin addicts.

As a side note, this gas station food mart was featured in a challenge on the first season of top chef. (I don’t know why they chose that gas station, but they did.) The place has changed brand (if not owner – I’m not sure) a couple times since then, though, so it’s not exactly a cultural landmark.

Somil Gandhi lives in Sausalito, which just denied Peet’s a permit.