— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Everytime I go get drunk in the Lower Haight, I'm always amazed by my inability to locate an ample supply of walkable ATM that don't end up costing me $4.50 to use (an issue that Haighteration agrees is a problem). Apparently the developer John Brennan Co. (builder of the new Haight Whole Foods) agreed this was a market opportunity, booted out a a 26-year-old cheese shop and a local truffle store at the corner of Divisadero and Oak and leased the freshly-vacant space to the neighborhood-absent Chase Bank.
Now neighbors have the pitchforks out. Former mayoral candidate Quintin Mecke created a “Save the Character of Divisadero” petition, an anti-Chase Facebook page popped up, and Dean Preston, executive director of Tenant's Together, filed a formal appeal, claiming Chase Bank is subverting the anti-formula retail laws that helped keep American Apparel out of the Mission:
Chase's effort to saturate the San Francisco market with cookie-cutter replicas of its branches, while avoiding any meaningful neighborhood input, is exactly what San Francisco's Formula Retail law was designed to prevent. In 2009, the Planning Commission unanimously rejected a similar effort by Chase to locate a branch in the Castro. Chase is bypassing Planning Commission review by obtaining permits without identifying the formula retail use.
The arguement goes that Chase isn't formula retail in the sense that they don't sell a product, which a bunch of neighborhoods wholeheartedly disagree with. Others are just sick of going to Market Street to take out some cash. But at the end of the day, neighbors are already getting into the pointless “I've lived here longer” pissing match, activists are encouraging people to pack tonight's Board of Appeals hearing, and everyone's missing the fact that this whole situation was created by the developer in the first place.
Comments (4)
At least American Apparel didn’t help destroy the country’s economy.
Quintin Mecke. The biggest bad joke of Campaign 2007.
San Francisco Fire Credit Union.
NIMBYs and elitists can eat shit. In trying to make every neighborhood the ideal, storybook, hipster borough you end up inconveniencing the masses and forcing people to spend $4 for a coffee or a loaf of bread. This has been done for decades now. Why did the Mish want to stop AA? Because the scene wants to shop there without being recognized, and they’ve gotten used to their routine of hitting the Haight St. store. I hate Chase too, but there’s already a Wells branch on that very same block. I hate Wells, too, but I need a bank and I don’t want to get gouged at an mom and pop store ATM just because some jerks think it’s “better that way”. Formula retail is cool enough for the hipster’s little Macbook and Whole Foods groceries and H&M and whatever else you can imagine, but no, not in THEIR neighborhood? No “That” kind of business? It’s a bank.