— By Brizz |
Apparently everyone on earth has already seen this, but I was celebrating my purchase of some non-iPhone fancypants phone on the internets and Stefania Starfish linked to this. I'm getting that HTC EVO. I don't know anything about it, but I heard I can play Tetris on it, so that's all I need really. I can do that on the Razr that I've had for five years also, but that Tetris is too easy.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
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.
— By Zach Perkins |
Fear of Major Brands in the Mission: Case # 87,679,001
Maybe adopting 'authentic cultural themes' (via Thailand) would help residents accept the 7-Eleven brand
On November 5th 2009, the owner of a 76 station at Mission and 30th submitted an application for renovations to the San Francisco Planning Department. In his letter, Somil Gandhi and his representatives stated their intent to re-brand the gas station's food mart as a 7-Eleven.
On May 20th 2010, the San Francisco Planning Department found the renovations to be “necessary and/or desirable”, granted Somil conditional use authorization to move forward with his plans, and scheduled a hearing in a week's time to finalize their approval.
On May 27th 2010, the NIMBYs flipped their shit.
With locally crafted pitchforks and biodegradable torches in hand, a group of “neighborhood activists” descended on the hearing. While the overtones of an intrinsic hatred for corporate branding were present, the NIMBY mob must have realized that this sort of knee-jerk reaction wouldn't make for a solid argument when trying to sway city planners. So instead they argued that 7-Eleven is a crime magnet and would “threaten local business” by fucking with their coffee sales. Whether or not you're delusional enough to believe that local cafe goers would switch from Philz to gas station coffee in droves, it's a moot point because the 76's food mart is already selling equally shitty coffee.
The great '7-Eleven Coffee threat' aside, let's make something very clear; this gas station is a local business and would remain a local business. Somil Gandhi is not selling his food mart to an evil corporation so that they can rape the fertile land that is Mission and 30th. The business will remain owned and operated by him and his family. All that changes is the signage and a slight expansion of the building's 'office area' to comply with corporate regulations. By doing so, Somil's suffering business will save money by being granted access to 7-Eleven's consolidated distribution network; allowing him to purchase goods at lower costs from a single retailer instead of several dozen.
Now it's true that gas stations do get robbed, but 3400 Mission has already been a gas station for some time. The only way that adding a 7-Eleven sign to an existing gas station could be perceived as painting a bulls-eye on the area, would be the fact that 7-Elevens typically sell alcohol and alcohol promotes crime. But there's one little catch, and the NIMBYs seem to have missed this in the project proposal (WHICH IS PUBLIC AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE, EVEN TO HALF WIT BLOGGERS LIKE MYSELF); this 7-Eleven will not sell alcohol. I REPEAT: THE PROPOSED 7-ELEVEN WILL NOT SELL ALCOHOL. This fact is clearly stated twice in the application (pages 11 and 39).
Thursday, July 1st, the Planning Department will reconvene in the case of 'Somil Gandhi and his family's financial well being VS. Yuppie sensibilities and cultural elitism'. Be sure to pour out a Gameday beer in honor of Somil Jr's non-existant college fund; because I'm sure he wanted to work at a failing gas station for the rest of his life anyway (so long as it wasn't a 'yucky 7-Eleven', how uncouth!)
Mission NIMBYs: enjoy your dilapidated 76 food-mart and future vacant lot.
Is the lack of Gameday beer at the proposed 7-Eleven the real reason behind opposition?
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
If you're like me, you've given up on keeping Dolores Park sanitary and just piss where ever you can. Hundreds of people are already pissing on the Muni tracks because the city / Rec and Parks doesn't care about black people doesn't care about addressing the obvious shortage of bathrooms. Some weekends, they make the token gesture of having 4 spaceshuttles parked on Dolores, but that never solves the problem because
So yeah, I think this scene for the Dyke March is hilarious. No matter how crowded the park gets on an everyday weekend, no matter how many people are essentially forced to urinate in public because they can't hold it for the requisite 15 minutes, the city refuses to solve the problem. Unless it's for Pride Weekend.*
* Yes I know event organizers are required to have porta potties on the scene for events. That doesn't mask the obvious problem that the park is wicked crowded every weekend that it's above 70 degrees.
(photo by cowperthwait)
— By Zach Perkins |
While we at Uptown don't (openly) condone Bros Slitting Bros throats, we're happy to see a celebrity (albeit a C-lister) join us in the fight against the Axis of Ice. Daniel Tosh raises an interesting point that hadn't previously occurred to me; Smirnoff Ice is the new ZIMA. I'd like to see the retro ZIMA make a comeback and take its place next PBR as a hipster beverage.
Hat tip to Clark. Friends don't let friends Ice Bros.
EDIT: Obligatory addition of 90's throwback ZIMA commercials.
“Are those free range burgers?”
“She started deep into my eyes and said …nice hat”
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Jesse over at Beer and Nosh peeped this scene about an hour ago. As a sign that I'm not a true San Franciscan, I honestly don't get why people do this to themselves. It's a device that connects you to the internet. Presumably, you are already connected to said internet (via needing iTunes to use the damn phone), so you've probably heard of this ecommerce thing. Whatever. Free snacks!
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
This is so fucked I'm just going to let this email we received from Dana Ketcham speak for itself:
I want to alert you to a proposed charter amendment that the Board of Supervisors will be considering in a hearing at 10 am on Friday on the 2nd Floor of City Hall. I apologize for the late notice but I just learned about the hearing.
This amendment would potentially allow any event permit issue by San Francisco Rec and Parks Dept. to be appealed by any member of the public that opposes the permit. The appeal would go to the Board of Appeals (a lengthy process). This amendment could make it extremely difficult to do events because:
- Any permit could be appealed by anyone. Basically every park in this city has at least one vocal neighbor that does not want events at the park. This includes Justin Hermann, Union Square, Golden Gate Park, Dolores and many others. In addition, there are other park groups who oppose events in parks in general.
- There is no time frame on the appeal process so you would have an appeal pending making it impossible to plan for your event. If the Board of Appeals does not hear the appeal, you can proceed with it but it would be uncertain if it would get to your appeal. We know the months of planning that goes into the events.
We believe that all of you do valuable work on a number of types of events ranging from fun events in our parks to fund-raisers for not for profit organizations to cultural celebrations. These would be curtailed.
As part of the permit process with SFRPD, SFRPD works hard with each of you to be responsive to members of the community and their concerns and ask each of you to do community outreach as part of the permit process to address their concerns. If there are significant issues SFRPD tries to resolve them and if necessary takes the permit to the Recreation and Park Commission.
I urge you or the organizations you represent to appear at this hearing to learn about this proposal and to express your views. The meeting is at 10 am on Friday in the 2nd Floor of City Hall. The best thing is if you can appear in person . If you can not, I urge you to email the members of the Board of Supervisors who are on the Committee that are hearing this appeal. They are:
- Michela Alioto-Pier Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
- Eric Mar Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org
- David Campos David.Campos@sfgov.org
If this proceeds it will be a ballot initiative on the November ballot. It would also provide the members of the Recreation and Park Commission would be appointed in part by the Board of Supervisors.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Remember back when we laughed at a completely ludicrous protest of NIMBY neighbors claiming that making cellphones work in the northwest corner of the Mission would hurt the children? Well, guess what, the protest actually fucking worked. In spite of the fact there is no scientific proof backing their claims that the celltower would cause you to turn into a swamp monster, T-Mobile backed down and withdrew their permit application.
From known neighborhood troll Gideon Kramer:
As you may know, T-Mobile applied for a permit to install a cell phone tower in the spire of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, 3281 16th St., across from Mission Dolores. Neighbors very concerned about the adverse health effects of radiofrequency microwave emissions from cellphone towers (see www.discoverrealanswers.com/Cell_Towers.shtml if interested in learning more) [ED NOTE: Any site that is called “Discover Real Answers” or “RON PAUL FORUMS” and ends in .shtml IS NOT TO BE FUCKING TRUSTED], especially in the vicinity of so many schools as we have here in the Mission Dolores neighborhood, protested, and did so successfully.
We just learned that T-Mobile has withdrawn its application. Congratulations to all who made this happen.
Congratulations to all who made this happen. You're all officially tools. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to smoke a parliament, drink Jameson all night, eat fast food, microwave a frozen dinner, call someone on my cellphone without using a headset, sit out in the sun without a shirt on all day, and cover myself in bugspray because I heard it was going to be a really bad year for mosquitos.
Signed,
One of your precious fucking children
— By Zach Perkins |
San Francisco! A call to arms!
The Battle against icing is no longer just at our doorsteps; a vile invasion from our shallower neighbors to the South. No my friends, it is being fought right here in our very streets and sadly we are losing. From Bay to Breakers to SOMA startups, to the Palo Alto palace of Facebook HQ, the bros of the Axis of Ice are swiftly moving from viral meme to being fully entrenched as a cultural institution.
Yesterday, the Resistance against icing received intel from Gawker agents that none other than Mein Zückerberg himself was spotted icing one of his employees; the two-first-name-having Firefox founder Blake Ross. It has also been known for some time that the douche-repository site Office Icing was created and run by San Francisco tech-marketing startup [NAME REDACTED].
While there were momentary celebrations of victory when Bros Icing Bros appeared to have retreated from battle, new intel reports that this retreat is temporary and that Bros Icing Bros will soon return as a fully funded startup in what is sure to be a 'Blitzkrieg of Bro'. Estimates of our potential casualties were not yet available at the time of this broadcast.
We are not safe San Francisco. Simply refusing to participate is no longer enough to repel the Axis of Ice. We must fight back with our own memes. We at the Resistance have created these icing alternatives to aid you in the good fight.
Bros Flasking Bros: Jameson preferred.
Bros Ricing Bros: Rice-A-Roni's profits are in the toilet, help a fallen SF icon.
Actually that's just fucking retarded, never mind.
Can also be done in conjunction with any alternative above.
Bros Tazing Bros.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
