Sat 9/15 - Come Celebrate with us

Saturday 9/15 - 8pm-?
at The Bitter End
on 441 Clement Street, Btwn 5th and 6th Aves,
near Toyboat Dessert Cafe
[Graphic by Rini Templeton]

VICTORY! - united community defeats STARBUCKS in the Richmond District

Thank you so much to everyone who wrote, called, rallied and spoke out at the 9/11 Board of Supervisors meeting to stop the Starbucks in the Inner Richmond District.

The SF Examiner and SF Chronicle coverage didn't adequately acknowlege the tremendous groundswell of support we built from our Richmond District community and other neighboring communities to stop the STARBUCKS:

Starbucks' effort to flood San Francisco with coffee shops ground to a halt Tuesday when the Board of Supervisors blocked a new outlet in the Richmond District under chain store regulations passed by voters last fall.
The board voted 9-1 to overturn the Planning Commission's June approval of a Starbucks at the corner of Geary Boulevard and Fifth Avenue, killing the proposal.
Jesse Fink, who has owned a nearby cafe for 25 years, filed the appeal on behalf of the Clement Street Merchants Association, which represents approximately 30 merchants in the area.
"I don't want San Francisco to lose its character and become a city of strip malls. ... That's what Starbucks is all about," Fink said in a hearing before the board.

Kudos especially to organizer extraodinaire Bryan McKeon, Toy Boat's Jesse Fink and his family, and Meg Lynch of Velo Rogue Cafe and the many richmond district small business folks that supported and built this campaign from 2 people to over 4700 united voices in a few weeks. Thanks also to David Tornheim, Dean Preston - Local-Imact.org, Eric Brooks - Our-city.org, Kathryn Roberts, and planning commissioner Christina Olague and others that provided key strategic advice. And Sue Hestor and Steve Williams for their legal advice as well.

Most of us were worried going into the 9/11 hearing, but by the time the Supervisors were deliberating we knew we had won. My 7 year old daughter Jade joined in the celebration last night too, not only because she thought there might be free ice cream from Toy Boat. I told her 'this is what democracy looks like' - and it's better than ice cream.

Bad maps, angry merchants and 5k worth of signatures

This blog is written by Bryan McKeon, of the original organizers of the neighborhood drive to halt the Starbucks going into 4041 Geary.

Well the plan is coming together and its quite overwhelming. More than a dozen COFFEE SHOPS from the Richmond district alone have submitted letters of opposition to City Hall Board of Supervisors . Many will be there to have their voice heard. Many of these coffee shops (and many other businesses also) have had petitions that are now totalling almost 5k. The exact number I wont know till the day we submit them (we have to go through and subtract the out of towners or incompleters etc, this is a small percentage but we have to verify what we submit).

I am both nervous and excited about this and really, more excited about how the neighborhood is coming together to decide how it is all shaped.

See you all Tuesday.

URGENT! Help Stop Starbucks in the Richmond! - letters needed now!

Help stop Starbucks in the Richmond -
click here to send an email letter to the SF Board of Supervisors now!
And tell your friends and neighbors - pack SF City Hall Tuesday 9/11 at 4:30pm for the hearing to decide on the issue. Or contact us is there are other ways you can help! [Thanks to www.local-impact.org for their support]

Chinese People Kick STARBUCKS Out of the Forbidden City/The Richmond District Can Do It Too! But we need your help!

Photograph: Stephen Shaver/EPA
Last month, 500,000 people in China successfully kicked STARBUCKS out of the Forbidden City in Beijing. But STARBUCKS still operates some 200 outlets in China.
In the summer of 2003, the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association also successfully kept STARBUCKs from moving into their community. The following year the late Tess Manalo-Ventresca and Sunset Neighbors in Action organized a successful grassroots campaign to keep STARBUCKS out of their neighborhood as well. Later that year, SF's Japantown activists successfully blocked a Starbucks they say would have harmed many of their small businesses as well.
We can do it too in the Richmond District - support our small businesses and protect the character of our neighborhood and keep Starbucks out. But we need your support.
Please go to http://local-impact.org/ to send emails and faxes to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors by September 11th. If the No Starbucks in the Richmond Action Alert is not posted on the site yet, it will soon be. So keep checking back.

Second Winds

This entry is from Bryan McKeon, one of the original organizers of the movement to stop Starbucks from moving into the Inner Richmond. [in photo far left]

I write now "movement" and "original" oganizers because since the filing date of July 11th (of the appeal to the planning commissions decision to allow a Starbucks into our neighborhood) it has turned into just that a movement. And the organizers are now a team instead of just Jesse Fink and myself.
The outpouring of concerned residents (and residents of other neighborhoods too) has been overwhelming. At yesterdays meeting in City Hall even more people came up to us, letting us know that if there was anything they could do to help please ask. In fact, I have heard this much since we first printed petitions and now I have to take help cause things have grown so much. Instead of riding around the 'hood placing and collecting petitions, I delegate tasks to the team. Awesome. We are now gearing up with press releases, more petitions, and a much improved notification network. Indeed this blog space was created by a concered neighbor who spotted a poster at Javaholics on 6th and Balboa just a week before our meeting with the supervisors.

[Photo: Jesse Fink, center, and other Richmond District residents challenge Toyota Service Center and Starbucks reps on the steps of SF City Hall]

Yesterday's continuance while seeming like a non-event was actually quite a victory. We came face to face with the board, Toyota, Starbucks supporters for Starbucks and those against. We all were only allowed a minute to speak. We spoke volumes. I handed over to the supervisors just shy of 3,000 signatures from San Francisco residents opposing the Starbucks as well as 12 copies of the San Francisco Retail Diversity Study which demonstrates how much more economically beneficial local retailers are than their chain competitors. One speaker at the meeting (who I had no idea was coming) actually quoted stats from this report. I was glad the supes all had copies to hand out as they were thumbing through it as she spoke.

Of the signatures gathered so far, at least 36 percent were from the immediate neighborhood (2nd to 12th avenues and from Balboa to Clement). An additional 30 percent were from the Richmond neighborhood.

While it was disappointing to have so many people ready to take on the planning commission decisions at City Hall yesterday and not have an actual vote, I agree with Jake McGoldrick that a continuance is a good idea. The heart and soul of legislation created by Matt Gonzales (for the very purpose for which we are using it now) is at stake here.
Time is on our side here. Letting people know what is going on is the most important thing. Starbucks (and Toyota too for that matter) with all its expertize and power in getting their brand name into peoples heads, did almost nothing to let their (proposed) neighbors know what their intentions were. In Starbucks defense (since they are not from the neighborhood and could not really know this) they did talk to both the Geary Merchants Boulevard Association as well as the Richmond District Planning Association (both which were in favor, both present at the Planning Meeting, and I think both absent at yesterdays meeting). Starbucks maybe just didnt know that these 2 organizations don't really represent the neighbohood very well. The Clement Street Organization was not notified. The bulk of the neighborhood notification came from this grassroots effort as well as some good (incidental) media coverage.

Victory at 8/7 SF Board of Supervisors Meeting & Testimony from longtime activist David Tornheim

Dozens of Inner Richmond District residents and small business owners testified today to urge the SF Board of Supervisors to vote against the granting of the conditional use permit to STARBUCKS. Bryan McKeon presented some 2976 signed petitions against the STARBUCKS to the Supervisors.
And, we won our first victory when D1 Supervisor Jake McGoldrick's motion for a continuance of the vote was approved by the Board. Starbucks supporters were against the continuance but the Board voted unanimously in support of delaying the vote until 9/11.
Mark Your Calendars for the Tues, September 11th meeting [4:30 pm or after] where the Board will vote on our appeal of the Starbucks permit. We need to turn out even more community folks for that meeting. More details later.
To view the testimony from today - go to SF Board Meeting Televised0 and click on Item 51 in the Agenda for 8/7/07 - 02:30-02:59.
---------------------------
Here's the testimony from one of our allies from District 5 David Tornheim -

Subject: No Starbucks on 4th and Geary
I OPPOSE the proposed Starbucks. I urge this matter will be continued. I will likely not be available to speak today and would like an opportunity to.

As for the merits of the appeal, I believe the study submitted by Appellants provides facts that support the kinds of concerns that residents like me have for opposing chain-stores like Starbucks:
* Money does not stay local
* Bad for Small independent businesses
* removes diversity from businesses
* Chain-stores are carnivorous--they try to eat the entire market share and drive out ALL other competition--e.g. Pharmacies and Gas Stations (independents are almost completely non-existent). In Washington, D.C., I believe there are far more Starbucks than ALL of the independent coffee houses combined. That's unacceptable.
* bland uniformity [chains make S.F. like every other town]
* employees are forced to act more like machines than humans, reciting well-rehearsed scripts (e.g. Safeway's "smiling policy") [See also Matt Smith's SF Weekly article about how Starbucks is more concerned with employees having burn victims fill out paperwork rather than attending to their injuries.]
* chain-stores add transportation costs and environmental impacts because they buy and distribute in bulk (from distant manufacturers) rather than purchases from smaller local producers.
David Tornheim
1890 Grove St #5
SF, CA