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S.F. Seen As Perfect Host City For Summer Olympics － in 2088
News The Snitch Sports
S.F. Seen As Perfect Host City For Summer Olympics － in 2088
By Max DeNike
Filmmaker’s Time-Lapse Video Shows Stunning SF Fog
News The Snitch Only in SF
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Millennial Problems: Most Pokemon-Obsessed City Is NOT S.F.
News The Snitch Tech
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S.F. Renters Partying Like It’s 2009
News The Snitch Housing, Tech
S.F. Renters Partying Like It’s 2009
By Max DeNike
Yesterday's Crimes: Rolling Stones, Hells Angels and Busted Heads at Altamont
News The Snitch Yesterday's Crimes
Yesterday's Crimes: Rolling Stones, Hells Angels and Busted Heads at Altamont
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S.F. Residents Beware: Razor Scooter Thug Is Roaming Streets
News The Snitch Crime
S.F. Residents Beware: Razor Scooter Thug Is Roaming Streets
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Woman Who Attended Beyoncé, Jay Z Concert at AT&T Park Sues Over Collision
News The Snitch Celebrities, Law & Order, Sports
Woman Who Attended Beyoncé, Jay Z Concert at AT&T Park Sues Over Collision
By Max DeNike
SF Police Union Just Won’t Stop
News The Snitch Controversy
SF Police Union Just Won’t Stop
By Max DeNike

Monday, March 30, 2009

Business / Local News / Recession Watch Bluegrass Festival Backer Hellman Sifts Through Ruins of Global Collapse Seeking Capital Sufficient To Bring Back Emmylou Harris

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 4:17 PM

Warren Hellman, banjo messiah? - JOYCE GOLDSCHMID
  • Joyce Goldschmid
  • Warren Hellman, banjo messiah?
With just a half-year to go before Golden Gate Park's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, free-concert backer Warren Hellman is combing the wreckage of the global financial collapse, seeking to augment the fortune that keeps his massive three-day music festival stocked with first-rate talent.

According to the financial newspaper The Daily Deal, Hellman & Friedman LLC is among the bidders for iShares, an exchange-traded fund business whose owner is pressed for cash to cover a portfolio of rotten mortgage-backed securities.


The British banking concern Barclays hopes to sell the unit, valued at around $5 billion, by Tuesday in order to pay for government insurance that would cover its portfolio of toxic assets, the story said.

Given the fire-sale pressure on Barclays, Hellman might be expected to press for a bargain. With the world financial system in ruins, Hellman's been in full-on vulture capitalist mode, bidding recently for an asset management unit of collapsed financial services firm Lehman Brothers.

If his iShares bid turns up clover, Hellman, a bluegrass musician on the side, might create a twist on the legend associated with Roman emperor Nero, who reputedly fiddled while the city burned. In Hellman's case, the world financial system has burned so that our local impresario-king might bankroll a three-day round of fiddling.

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Breaking News / Law & Order Supreme Court Sends S.F. Restaurateurs' Order Back -- No Emergency Order For You!

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 2:33 PM

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Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy today informed San Francisco restaurant owners that he found their legal petition to be cold, undercooked, and full of gristle -- before sending it back.

Kennedy spurned the Golden Gate Restaurant Association's application for an emergency order that would have immediately curtailed the employer spending requirement of the city's Health Care Security Ordinance -- and, in effect, gutted Healthy San Francisco.

The GGRA initially sued the city regarding Healthy San Francisco requirements that employers fund workers' health care. On March 9, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear the Restaurant Association's case; the group has 90 days from that date to file an appeal to the Supreme Court. Whether or not they do so, thanks to today's move from Kennedy, Healthy San Francisco will be around for at least the short-term.

You can read the city's response to the GGRA's lawsuit here. You can view a city timeline of the case here.

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Government / Local News / Politics Sound and Fury: Parsing the DCCC's Immigration Stance

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 12:59 PM

What happens when the shouting's over?
  • What happens when the shouting's over?

San Francisco's powerful Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) made headlines last week when, after heated debate, it passed a resolution assailing Mayor Gavin Newsom's take on the sanctuary city policy -- a decades-old commitment by local public officials not to cooperate more than necessary with federal immigration laws. The policy was revisited by the mayor last year after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the city was keeping young felons from being deported. As a result, some say, the mayor's office has directed police to refer juvenile offenders to federal authorities after they have been arrested -- without necessarily waiting for them to be convicted.

The mayor's office disputes that it has specific guidelines on when to hand over juveniles to the feds. But that didn't keep the DCCC from approving a fiery statement criticizing the mayor and police department for going after law-abiding immigrants. Authored by Debra Walker, a committee member and 2010 supervisorial candidate, the resolution accused local police of racial profiling, with passing references to President Obama, the U.S. Constitution, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay. An unsuccessful amendment put forward by Scott Wiener, another committee member and 2010 supervisorial candidate, skimped on the rhetoric and made clear that the sanctuary policy should not apply to violent criminals.

Fair enough. But what does all this actually mean? In other words, what are the Dems fighting about? Ideology aside, the crux of the debate is a fairly narrow policy question: When is it appropriate for the city to turn over juvenile suspects to immigration authorities -- before or after they've been convicted of a crime? Proponents of the former approach say that violent offenders can do more harm while out on bail, while advocates of the latter say accused immigrants should be afforded due process by the city. The odd thing about the DCCC debate is that neither side has made up its mind on the question.

"I'm not going to get specific, because I'm not an expert on that," Walker said in an interview, adding that her "personal preference would be to wait until we have a trial and a resolution." Wiener, her adversary in last week's discussion, likewise demurred when asked for concrete details on a wise approach. "I'm not prepared to state when exactly in the process it should happen," he said. "I think it's important for people to have due process before the reporting happens," he added, while noting that "If you wait too long in the process, you have other problems."

Therefore be it resolved... Sorry. What was it, exactly?

Photo by Kevin Coles.

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Media Some of the 'Reporters Whose Names You Know' Leaving the Chronicle...

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:53 AM

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On Friday, longtime San Francisco Chronicle fashion editor Sylvia Rubin noted that it was the last day at Fifth and Mission for "a lot of veteran reporters whose names you know."

More than 80 Chron union workers have applied for a buyout, and guild rep Carl T. Hall -- who took the offer as well -- figures that number may jump to 100 or even 150 by the end of the month.

A list of some of the editorial-side employees who took management's buyout offer was released by local author Frances Dinkelspiel -- one of the paper's blogger luminaries, by the way. While the Media Workers Guild refused to confirm the names on the list, it appears many of the familiar bylines have slipped off the page (though Rubin notes that a number of departed staffers hope to still freelance for the paper).

Some of the folks heading out the door:
  • The aforementioned Rubin and Hall, a longtime science writer;
  • Music writer Joel Selvin;
  • Washington, D.C. reporter Zachary Coile;
  • Sportswriters Nancy Gay and Michelle Smith;
  • Culture writers Jesse Hamlin, Edward Guthmann, and Heidi Benson;
  • Photographers Mark Costatini, Kim Komenich, Craig Lee, Eric Luse, Michael Maloney, and Kurt Rogers;
  • Simar Khanna, home and garden editor (and, keep in mind, Laura Thomas, the assistant home and garden editor already told SF Weekly she was going. It appears the Chron's new M.O. is to publish a Homeless and Gardenless section).

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SF Gov InAction: Supes To Be Renamed 'The Super Friends' And Only Use Powers For Good. PLUS: Is Gavin Newsom a Cylon?

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:59 AM

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Monday, March 30, 1 p.m. - Land Use & Economic Development Committee I'm thinking of holding a garage sale. My worldly possessions -- not to brag -- include a bag of kumquats, a DVD of Waking Life, a book of commonly used Scottish phrases, and a bottle of something that this guy on the corner swears is wine. The city is also planning to hold a little garage sale. Up for auction: Seven parcels of land along the former Central Freeway right of way and Octavia Boulevard. Their value is estimated at $35 million. Our sales are scheduled for the same day, damn it. Isn't that always the way? If only Gavin Newsom would return my calls, we could avoid these kinds of mix-ups. Last week we were even wearing the same tie:
My tie
  • My tie
My tie
  • My tie
All proceeds from sales of former freeway parcels have to be used for construction and maintenance of Octavia Street and adjacent areas. According to planning documents, projects likely to be funded by the sales include McCoppin streetscape improvements and the development of McCoppin Garden; lighting and streescape improvements along Valencia Street, and a skate park, dog run, and basketball court under the new overhead freeway at Mission and Duboce Streets. Wait ... wait ... the city is going to improve the McCoppin streetscape in the next two years? Damn it, *I* was planning to improve the McCoppin streetscape in the next two years! It's right here in my planner! "Get milk; Stalk ex-girlfriend; Improve McCoppin streetscape!" Newsom -- we did it again! We've GOT to coordinate! Another big item on the Land Use agenda this week is a measure by Chris Daly about affordable housing. You ever think that maybe Chris Daly thinks a little too much about housing? You ever wonder if when Chris and his friends get together to watch Lost, he spends the whole hour thinking "You know, I could really develop the shit out of that island with affordable housing."?

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Local News Muni Manners Mavens to Dabble in Charity

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:16 AM

Sneaker Sympathies Run Deep
  • Sneaker Sympathies Run Deep
Used athletic sneakers are one of those things that start to take on new luster in an economic downturn. (For many San Franciscans, hand-me-down footwear is hardly synonymous with, say, the early 1990s.) Allowing that demand for old shoes is out there, we're still surprised to report the identity of the charitable souls stepping up to serve the need.

It's the Muni Manners ladies.

Angelie Agarwal and Julie Hayes, the once-anonymous vigilantes of public-transportation etiquette whose Muni Manners blog presents everything you ever wanted to know about proper behavior on a street tram, have announced a used-shoe drive that will run through the month of April. Called the Muscle Manners Fitness Shoe Drive -- Muscle Manners is the pair's parallel blog on gym etiquette -- the effort will feature drop-off stations at YMCA branches across town. (Check out the full list of locations here.)

Two marketing executives promoting good manners AND dispensing free shoes. Who's to say all hope for this town is lost?

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Crime / SF Oddities San Francisco's Explosion of the Weekend Wasn't Made-For-TV Blast -- It Was This Brazen Tenderloin Arson

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 8:33 AM

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This weekend, all the cameras -- professional, amateur, and NBC -- were pointed at the I-280 onramp, where a big rig was rigged to burst into flames for the S.F.-centric TV drama Trauma.

The results were impressive. But they cannot touch, with an exploding, 10-foot pole, the bizarre arson and vehicular immolation reported this morning in the Tenderloin. Per the San Francisco Police Department:

00:36 -- ARSON: 100 block of 6th street. Victim is seated in a parked vehicle when victim sees suspect (BM 60) approach holding a "box on fire." Suspect throws lit box under victim's vehicle and runs away. Vehicle ignites and victim exits, runs away and calls 911. No injuries and arrests.

Good Lord, where to begin? A "box on fire"? Who perpetrates crimes these days with a flaming box? This sounds like something hearking to biblical Persia: "And, lo, Nebuchadnezzar flung his box of flames at the Hittites, and smote them to a man. No arrests were made."

Second, let's all put ourselves in the place of the victim for a moment. What could possibly have been going through his mind when he noticed a man approaching him holding a "box on fire"? This is as intriguing as it is terrifying.

Finally, it's good to know that the flaming box-wielding criminals in this city are still fit and limber enough to run from the scene at age 60. Certainly this is what our city fathers were thinking when they created the Healthy San Francisco program.

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Government / Law & Order Tenants at Apartment 'Scam' Profiled In SF Weekly Say Shenanigans Continue

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:30 AM

1030 Post Street
  • 1030 Post Street
According to folks who live there, strange dealings are still afoot at 1030 Post Street. The building, which was profiled in a 2006 cover story by SF Weekly alumnus A.C. Thompson, used to house a number of long-term, low-income seniors. After management entered into a state program in which it was awarded tax dollars to convert the structure into "affordable housing," many of those indigent folks were given the boot; their rents were jacked up and they were deemed too poor for affordable housing. Yes, you read that right. At the time, then-Supervisor Aaron Peskin went so far as to label the practice a "scam."

Now, nearly three years down the road, tenant Ryszard Czarnecki phoned SF Weekly and complained that his apartment in the building is "very stinky" and management will do nothing for him. His lawyer, Raquel Fox of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, has sued KDF Post Street LLC on Czarnecki's behalf.

"Ryszard has some really severe habitability issues in his home. KDF Post Street, while receiving thousands of dollars in tax credits, can't even improve the unit -- and they forced Ryszard out to do seismic retrofit work but didn't do the other work that needed to be done," says Fox.

In short, Czarnecki was displaced so his apartment could be retrofitted, but Fox claims his rampant mold and rodent problems were purposely ignored.

Calls to KDF's attorney, Clifford Freed, were not returned for this story.

Of course, Czarnecki's situation is just the tip of the legal iceberg. Following Thompson's 2006 story, the city's rent board ruled against KDF's practice of jacking up rents in "affordable" units -- some tenants saw rates jump from $500 to $1,300 a month. The city's position is that such "affordable" units fall under the jurisdiction San Francisco rent control laws, despite KDF's involvement in a state program.

This triggered a lawsuit vs. the city of San Francisco. Deputy City Attorney Wayne Snodgrass says that case has its day in court on April 2.

Fox continues that KDF's treatment of its tenants has not been above-board.

"Lots of families have been frightened into leaving when they're told INS is going to show up. People have left in the middle of the night," she says.
 

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Law & Order Having Their Cake and Drinking it Too: 'Layer Cake' Wine Sues 'Cupcake' Label

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 6:30 AM

Look, even this kid can tell the difference between a layer cake and a cupcake!
  • Look, even this kid can tell the difference between a layer cake and a cupcake!
I am not a legal scholar. But I can tell you this: Never have I ever been so blitzed on the fruit of the vine that I couldn't tell a layer cake from a cupcake. But, again, I am no legal scholar -- because just such a distinction is the genesis of a 56-page copyright infringement lawsuit filed last week in San Francisco Superior Court.

One True Vine of St. Helena (which puts out the Layer Cake label) has taken umbrage with The Wine Group of Delaware, which produces a line called "Cupcake." Now, wine connoisseurs are always portrayed as a smart and discerning lot. And perhaps they are. But you won't get that from the contentions put forward in this lawsuit. In essence, One True Vine claims that oblivious oenophiles won't be able to tell Layer Cake (mid-range price, picture of "a partially sliced and decadent-looking chocolate cake" on the label) from Cupcake (low price, no picture on label, picture of a cupcake on cases).

But One True Vine's complaint doesn't stop there. The company is pissed that the Cupcake folks would dare compare their wines -- to cake. To wit, Cupcake's 2008 Sauvignon Blanc is pitched as "reminiscent of your grandmother's lemon chiffon cake." Another wine is compared to a "chocolate cherry cake" -- and One True Vine seems miffed the Cupcake folks even deign to suggest you drink their wines with cake.

Personally, I've never sipped any wine and thought "ah, cake" -- though Manischewitz Loganberry does taste an awful lot like Smucker's syrup. As for objecting to the notion of even suggesting that Cupcake wines would go well with cake -- Christ, what doesn't go well with cake?

I've read through the entire 56-page suit, and it looks an awful lot like the good folks at One True Vine want to establish a monopoly on all cake-related wine text and imagery. And yet, One True Vine was established in 2003. We wonder what the folks at Cakebread Cellars (est. 1973) think about that?

Photo   |   Shaggy Paul

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Crime / Local News Bay Area's Last Stagecoach Robbery Commemorated By Band of Eccentrics Wearing Funny Hats

Posted By on Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 5:30 AM

clampers.jpg
On August 17, 1905, an unknown man wearing driving goggles on his face and feedbags over his boots leaped, screaming, from a tree and into Bay Area lore.

The masked man demanded stagecoach driver Ed Campbell throw down the Wells Fargo strongbox and the mail bags before passing a hat among the coach's several passengers. He then fired his gun in the air, spooking the horses and sending the coach on its way. His haul for the day: An empty strongbox and mail bags and $4.30 from the passengers. Even 104 years ago, this was no great haul; a round-trip stagecoach ride between Half Moon Bay and Pescadero -- then a resort for well-heeled San Franciscans -- cost $4. Even worse, one of the coach passengers had been hiding more than $100 and a gold watch, which eluded driving goggles-feedbag man.The highwayman was never caught.

The ignominious raid was the last in Bay Area history; The steady march of progress ensured that future miscreants would engage in train robberies or car-jackings. And it was commemorated over the weekend with the placement of a plaque along what is now a quiet, Hillsborough road by the San Francisco chapter of E Clampus Vitus -- a society of men with a fondness for drink, Western history, and bizarre attire (not necessarily in that order).

The news of a stagecoach robbery -- an archaic crime even for 1905 -- was the Bay Area's big story of the day, and inspired the following ditty in the San Francisco Call:

Huzzah! Romance returns again, once more as in the days of old/
Disdaining banks or chu chu train, a robber stops a stage for gold/
Trouble for the terrible tempered triggerman terminated:
Hurrah! Such news is great immense!
But softly, what is this I am told?
This robber robbed me for thirty cents?
For a slideshow of the peculiar plaque dedication, click here.

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    clipping at Brava Theater Sept. 11
    Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'. Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"
  • Tame Impala at The Greek Theatre, September 3
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