I had a burning desire to order overpriced shots of Jameson from a meth addict last night, so I made my way over to 800 Larkin with two of my three friends.  Rather than leaving our bikes to the mercy of the Tyrone Biggums-looking sketchtard who offered to “watch over” our rides for five bucks and a cigarette, we opted to park 'em in front of the well-lit Century strip club on Larkin.  Within 10 minutes, some agro dude wearing a shirt that clearly didn't fit him and a tie, who we later learned was the proprietor of New Century Theater, began running around the block yelling “whose bikes are these?” He even ran into 800 Larkin and yelled at all the glazed-over hookers and coke dealers. When he learned they were our bikes, he squawked “come with me and remove them.” Naturally, we resisted because they were locked up to a parking meter on the sidewalk, but he insisted that because they were parked at the edge of a white zone (loading zone), it was illegal and that he would cut the bikes from the meter if we did not voluntarily remove them. So we did the mature thing and told him to get bent and finished our drinks, while he called the police and told his bouncer to fetch a saw.

To our surprise, these guys were actually intent on cutting our bikes off the meter and throwing them up the street.  A car quickly pulled up to loading zone and the owner and bouncer started riffling through a trunk full of tools.  As all this went down, the police showed up and clearly didn't know what the fuck to do. After a minute of the owner ranting against the bicycles hurting his business, it came down to the cops asking us “how long are you leaving your bikes there?” We quipped some  awful pun like “we're just loading up our drinks and we're biking back to a more civil place.” Then they said they'd be by later and expected our bikes to be gone.

So is it actually ever illegal to lock your bike up to a meter?  SF's laws don't say there is anything wrong with locking your bikes up in a white zone, but I'm sure cutting bikes from meters isn't cool.  That said, next time you're in the TL, watch out for ornery strip club owners mugging your bike.

[photo by miss.libertine]

Amazingly, this is not an April Fool's joke. From Willie's latest Inside Scoop column:

I wandered out for another birthday dinner to a place called the Blue Plate out on Mission where you should eat in your car because there’s no parking. All those restaurants are going to suffer if they don’t get together and figure out how to offer valet parking. They’re so close together they should collectively take one of those lots in night and have parking. I think they’re missing lots of opportunities for other San Franciscans to experience what they cook out there because the challenge to find the parking space dissuades people from going out.

Willie, I know I'm out of touch because I didn't make a grip of cash selling out San Francisco to developers, but since when do whores eat anything other than other people's genitals while parked along Mission?  Don't get me wrong, I'd be all for a drive-up diner, complete with roller-skating waitress, milk shakes, onion rings, and bike parking, opening up along Mission, but don't you think that there are better solutions to the problem than eating inside your car or paying some bro minimum wage to figure out the parking 'crisis' for you?  Like, I don't know, taking the bus?

Then you'd really have something to complain about.

If you don't know, this is Jeanmarie Guenot, the alleged woman who recently got Slim's alcohol license supended. Check SFWeekly for more info on the whole bullshit. I mean look, I understand living next to clubs and bars can be an issue BUT THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T FUCKING MOVE NEXT TO A FUCKING CLUB IF YOU GOT BITCHMADE EARS! If you would like to check the open letter to her, go here. Can some black metal band please post up outside of her place and do a 48 hour set? Pretty please?

The Examiner published a doozy the other day about San Francisco businesses exploiting deportation fears to dramatically underpay their workers:

Over the past seven years, [San Francisco Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement] records show that some of San Francisco’s best-known employers, including Safeway, McDonald’s, Big Lots, Subway, Martha & Bros. Coffee Shop and We Be Sushi, have short-changed workers by as much as $4.1 million.

That money has been reimbursed to more than 2,500 employees — many of them undocumented.

Workers included janitors, baristas, maids, delivery van drivers and home care providers. They wash uniforms, turn down beds, operate whirring meat dicers and tend bubbling vats of oil — often for just $5 an hour. Some worked overtime for months without receiving a single paycheck.

There are 308 business total that have broken minimum wage laws, including Mission Street's Mi Tierra Market that “was paying workers $250 to $400 a week to work 12-hour days, six days a week.”

[Examiner | photo by Orpheum Photography]