UPDATE: Lawrence Le Blanc, Brick & Mortar's booker, tells us new soundproofing will go in Wednesday and “all is well.”

Despite being located in the shadow of the Central Freeway, the Entertainment Commission ruled Tuesday that Brick & Mortar Music Hall is too noisy and is only allowing the club to remain open under burdensome circumstances.  The Examiner reports:

The restrictions stem from nearly two years of complaints by neighbors of the venue on Mission Street near Duboce Avenue who say they have heard noise from the concert hall since it opened.

Following an hourlong discussion, the commission voted to approve numerous restrictions for the club, including limiting entertainment hours from 5 p.m. until 12:30 p.m. on weekends and 5 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. on weekdays. The sound levels of the club may also not exceed 80 decibels, which is about the level of a garbage disposal.

At the hearing, the owners explained they had already invested $50,000 in soundproofing, however the commission demanded the club schedule additional soundproofing by June 15—despite some neighbors defending the club, saying noise issues have improved.  Additionally, Brick & Mortar claims to have never received a complaint or police citation.

Brick & Mortar's owners allege the heavy-handed restrictions are not in fact over sound issues, but over their refusal to employ the Entertainment Commission's lone inspector's private security company, Yojimbo Protection Services.  In an interview with the SF Weekly, Brick & Mortart's owner Jason Perkins claims the club's troubles began last fall when he declined to hire Yojimbo at the inspector's urgings.

“I think if I hired his security company we would not have had one complaint,” Perkins says.

Other club owners, speaking off the record, report similar occurrences. One says [Inspector Vajra Granelli] referred him to a partner at Yojimbo to hire security for a nightclub. The owner hired the firm, but soon found that it was too expensive. After he replaced the firm, the club began getting noise and security citations from Granelli, according to the owner.

“The reason why clubs hire this person is because they [the entertainment commission] leave us alone,” he says.

The corruption has left Perkins frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. “We will close,” he told the Examiner. “We’ve got four other venues to run, it’s not worth it.”

[SF Weekly | Examiner]

We always knew that the people protesting basic freedoms outside of Valencia Street's Planned Parenthood were a bit unhinged, but their tantrum during last week's Board of Supervisor's meeting—when the board created a 25 foot protest-free “bubble” around the city's reproductive clinics—defies our already low opinion of them.  The Examiner's Melissa Griffin caught the scene:

At the meeting, a number of anti-abortion activists came to register their opposition to the law, and while I usually listen to the meetings while doing other work, I stopped multitasking when the first activist said, “This is my daughter. She was born on April 22, much to the chagrin of my husband. April 20 — 4/20 — might have been more fun, living in San Francisco.”

So, yes, it started with drug humor and got worse. “I have a question for the supervisors and all the people present here. Have y’all heard of the Emancipation Proclamation?” said the next activist. “There was a time when, if I had the means and the desire, I could own slaves.”

Then, pointing to various supervisors, two of whom are black, she said, “I could own you. I could own you. I could — usually the black people — I could own them. Yes I could. You would belong to me.” She went on to say that eventually, we will all view abortion like slavery, as something we can’t believe we tolerated. At least that’s what I think she said. By that point, I had crawled completely under my desk.

Fortunately, the law passed.

[Examiner | Photo of a BACORR counter-protest by Steve Rhodes]

Recently, economic turmoil coupled with a lack of congressional bipartisanship has caused an downward financial slope for government subsidized programs, most recently manifested in an act known as 'sequestration'. It's not great. Lots of programs are losing money, lots of people are losing their jobs, and Congress has an approval rating somewhere in the vicinity of the Val Kilmer Batman movie (topical reference). 

That being said, it's not like the effects of sequestration are all bad. From NBC Bay Area:

The U.S. Navy's Blue Angels announced on Tuesday that because of federal budget cuts and sequestration, the entire 2013 season has been canceled.

The Blue Angels were scheduled to appear in San Francisco during Fleet Week in October. The event is still scheduled to go on, but the Blue Angels were arguably the biggest draw.

Despite what your views on patriotism are, there are no doubt that the Blue Angels are just the absolute fucking worst. They spend the entire week performing over the city, shaking buildings by being very fast and aerodynamic jerkoffs. An unnecessary pollutant the tranquil skies of our oh-so-cherished microclimate, the Blue Angels only function is clogging the bridges and roads with a massive influx of North Bay, Coolpix camera-wielding tourists.

So if a few bus drivers and other city employees lose their jobs, so be it. I full-heartedly embrace sequestration. It enables us to spend one extra week of the year not having to jump under our desks in a Cold War-style bomb drills. Except for every Tuesday at noon. 

Go Congress! 6 more years!

As cyclists in this city know, getting doored happens more often that you think it does. Just last weekend our very own fearless blogger KevMo was doored by taxi on Sanchez St, which resulted in a swollen knee and a higher than usual bar tab later that night. I was doored by SFPD on my birthday 2 years ago. Commuters and messengers get doored on Market street on a weekly basis. But not everyone walks away with only minor injuries and a dented front wheel when they get doored. Recently, San Francisco resident Melissa Moore had a harrowing experience on Polk Street which left her in immense pain. As she told Streetsblog:

Just before 9am, I was going east on McAllister about to turn left onto Polk Street. I waited for a car to take a right onto Polk before I made my turn. About halfway up the block, the car pulled into the bike lane in front of me and then parked (despite the fact that there was an available driveway less than 10 feet in front of him). I maneuvered out into the street to circumvent the car. When I reached the driver side, he swung open his door into my bike. (I later learned that the door caught my right pedal.) I crashed into the street, pretzeled with my bike. There was a white flash and a feeling of something snapping, then darkness. I heard muffled voices asking if I was okay. Unable to speak or move for a couple minutes, I searched for my breath and assessed if the snapping was my spine breaking. It hurt immensely and I expressed that to the anonymous voices. The driver asked if I wanted him to call the police and I said “yes.” Then I felt hands on me, pulling me up off the ground.

Melissa goes on to recount when the police came, her going to the hospital, etc., but the worst is what happened when she filed a claim with the drivers insurance company, Geico. They claimed that she was 20% at fault in this accident because, as Geico puts it, she “failed to control [her] speed in order to avoid an accident and lost control of [her] bicycle.”

Let that sink in for a minute. A cyclist, going uphill on Polk street, failed to control her speed, and crashed into a door.

I don't personally know Melissa, so I don't know how fast she is on a bike or how strong a of climber she is, but I'm betting that she did not accelerate into the door while sprinting uphill on her mountain bike. And I know that I am not wrong because there is a video of the entire accident. Watch for yourself:

As you can see, she suddenly accelerates to Lance Armstrong on EPO speeds and completely rips off the drivers side door due to the force of the impact, all while screaming HULK SMASH. Or at least that's what Geico sees this as. Unbelievable.

I'd also like to point out that California Vehicle Code 22517, as mentioned in the Streetsblog article, is very ambiguous. While the code states that you cannot open your car door into traffic unless it's safe to do so, it offers no protection for cyclists who have to weave in and out of traffic because of drivers that do stop in the bike lane, taxi or private car. It does, however, does apply when a cyclist is riding to the right of the car in a non-designated bike lane, like on Market St.  This law was made to protect cyclists, but it cannot protect cyclists in all situations, so what could be changed to better protect cyclists like Melissa and everyone else who rides bikes?

[Streetsblog]