The much loved small Mission District venue SUB-Mission in is danger of closing by the end of the month. According to SF Weekly:

The SUB-Mission gallery, a performance art space that has existed in the Mission District for almost 20 years, may be closing down within a month. Hefty building code violation fines, the cost to renovate and retrofit the space, and a rent increase of $3,000 a month has the venue — one of the last all-ages venues in the city for smaller bands to play — on its last legs. […]

The city estimates the budget for all the renovations and retrofitting shouldn’t be any more than $360,000. Finally, it wants $15,000 for the proper permits.

“It’s a legal way to kill you,” [SUB-Mission owner and co-founder Txutxo Perez] said of the slow process of getting approval to start the renovations. “They just give you the runaround [until you run out of money],” he said.

Perez has not given up, however, and has launched a GoFundMe campaign which lays out the venue’s predicament in more detail:

The thing is, with the above listed [city permitting] problems, we cant make rent without being open, and we can’t be open to make rent because of the building permits, and cost associated with.
We are really stuck in a catch 22 situation, but the main thing for us is to make rent, so we don’t lose our space, which has done so much, for so many people through out the almost 20 years we have been existing in the Mission District. Any and everything will help us stay a float.

[Photo: Abeer Hoque]