Shitty Situation

Place Pigalle Shuttered By Retaliatory, Sewage-Leaking Landlords

Parish Entertainment Group has been having a real tough go at the bar business lately.  It was less than a year ago that Brick & Mortar Music Hall was hit with “numerous restrictions” thanks to aurally-sensitive neighbors and an allegedly corrupt entertainment commissioner.  Now, according to a sign posted in the etched window of Hayes Valley’s Place Pigalle, their dive bar’s lease was rescinded by their retaliatory landlord.

“After enduring 3 years of raw sewage leaks and water leaks from the upstairs apartments at 520 Hayes St, Place Pigalle was forced to call in city inspectors to stop the health and electrical hazards to their employees and customers,” they write in the letter, noting that inspections lead to “immediate citations.”  They continue:

What Place Pigalle did not anticipate is that in retribution for alerting the city officials to the ongoing sewage, water and electrical issues, Hayes Valley Properties would decide to rescind our lease here at Place Pigalle and announce that the owners of Hayes Valley Properties would instead open their own bar in our location very shortly.

A business puts serious work into making a spot successful, decides they are over having the pipes drop ones and twos on their heads, and the landlord decides it’d be easier to run the business themselves than stop the shit shower.  Sounds like the type of people you’d want to buy a beer from!

The money graph lands at the end:

Welcome to the New San Francisco. The only place where the Super Rich can literally crap on the rest of us, violate city codes, steal our businesses and dare us to do something.

[h/t Patrick Connors]

Comments (9)

With a name like HVP

This sounds awful, but after the Brick & Mortar thing, I can’t help but wonder if this is one of those, “if you run into assholes all day long, you’re the asshole” situations.

Probably not, I’d say the landlord would rather just have in that spot one of those stores that sells $300 rucksacks and $150 Swedish frisbees 

If what place pigalle’s accusations are true , then they have a very serious lawsuit on their hands. This is a the very, very least breach of contract.

Sounds like a garden variety business dispute.  Place Pigalle is probably just trying to ride the current wave of anti-landlord sentiment for leverage in settlement negotiations.  

It would be a crying shame too see Place Pigalle closed down over this. I’ve lived in Hayes Valley for years and this is the only place for the locals to grab a quiet pint at this point. From what I’ve heard HVP have been shafting tenants on that block for years. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Fingers crossed the bar gets to stay.

HVP are a bunch of crooks - I lived a few doors down from PP and Hayes Valley Properties was consistently obnoxious to deal with. Looks like Place Pigalle is under new ownership, which is good as it wasn’t working well in the 2000’s. The New Parish and Brick & Mortar are good venues and indicate to me that the new owners are reputable. Given everything I know, I’m inclined to go with Place Pigalle here - unless Hayes Valley Properties has changed in the last few years it’s very likely that they are still screwing people left & right.