A homeless man and convicted child molester who camped near a San Francisco school with signs saying “free fentanyl 4 new users” was booked into jail Thursday, records show.

“We believe that he presented a public safety risk that necessitated him being in custody while this case is open,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told ABC7 Bay Area.

Jenkins announced on Oct. 26 that Moore would face multiple criminal charges.

San Francisco Superior Court judge Vedica Puri granted the DA’s request.

“While this city is extraordinarily empathetic to its unhoused, we offer untold amounts of services; there is a limit. So, when there’s a public nuisance issue, this court has to take it seriously,” Puri said, according to ABC7 Bay Area reported.

READ MORE: San Francisco Homelessness Battle Heats Up as Star Wars Theme Deployed From Speakers

Joseph Adam Moore was arrested by police around on Oct. 20 after he refused to remove his belongings and leave the area by 12:15 p.m. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

Jail records show Moore was booked into jail on Thursday around 11 a.m. on a $35,000 bond and is due in court next on Nov. 8.

Moore was booked on one misdemeanor charge of contempt of a court order, battery, and “obstructing free and comfortable use of liberty and property,” jail records show.

Moore’s attorney, Erica Franklin, said in an email that Moore is being charged with misdemeanor battery and maintaining a public nuisance through the use and/or placement of his tent. Franklin said her client is not being charged with contempt of a court order but is on misdemeanor probation for violating a restraining order to prevent him from straying on the property of the San Francisco Fire Department.

San Francisco police had previously said Moore was subject to a stay away order from the fire department after he created a nuisance by camping behind a San Francisco firehouse.

Franklin said she is moving to dismiss the public nuisance charge against Moore.

“The [public nuisance charge] is an unconstitutional attempt to get him to leave the neighborhood, as they were complaints about him, and it is not a valid charge. I will be filing a motion to dismiss it,” Franklin said.

Franklin told ABC7 the signs Moore posted outside his encampment is why Moore came to the attention of authorities.

“It’s not like anybody actually saw him giving meth or fentanyl to anybody,” Franklin told the news outlet. “He doesn’t; he didn’t have any meth or fentanyl on him.”

Police confirmed Moore was arrested for battery after throwing liquid on someone before getting into an altercation with them on Oct. 19. A day later, Moore told The Standard he had been punched in the face by a parent from the Stella Maris Academy. Police then arrested him.

ABC7’s Dan Noyes reports Moore poured a gallon jug of apple juice over a parent before the parent hit him.

Franklin said Moore’s battery charge is from a battery committed by a man against Mr. Moore, who was punched in the face.

“Mr. Moore was minding his own business and this man came over and tried to remove his signs and threatened to burn his property. The police refused to arrest this other man and arrested Mr Moore instead,” Franklin said.

Stella Maris is a K-8 Catholic school directly across the street from where Moore camped at Ninth Avenue and Geary Boulevard.

Signs reading “meth for stolen items” and “free fentanyl 4 new users” are displayed at Joseph Adam Moore’s encampment in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood on Oct. 17. | Source: George Kelly/The Standard

San Francisco Archdiocese spokesperson Peter Marlow said the religious organization is following Moore’s case closely.

“We want to make sure children and families are safe, reach out to the homeless, and support a solution from the city that will achieve both of those goals,” Marlow said.

Convicted Pedophile

California’s Megan’s Law website lists Moore as a San Francisco transient convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age in 1997 and released from prison in 2002. San Francisco Superior Court documents show Moore has been arrested five times in the city since 2007 for allegedly failing to re-register his address as a sex offender every 30 days. 

A Santa Cruz Sentinel article from 1997 reports Moore was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old girl in Santa Clara County before being released from custody and then having sex with a 15-year-old in Santa Cruz behind a set of bathrooms on Seabright Beach.

The post San Francisco Homeless Pedophile Jailed After ‘Free Fentanyl’ Signal Saga appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Imagine an Airbnb guest flooding your entire home from a clogged toilet, leaving you without a home and responsible for footing the massive bill. That’s what a San Francisco host says happened to her earlier this year, and she’s been fighting Airbnb to get reimbursed since.

Erika Gemzer, a career coach who uses X under the handle ErikaCoaches, posted on the platform the nightmare she’s been living since renting a unit above her apartment to a guest who clogged the toilet with feces and baby wipes on April 14.

If only a plunger could have fixed the problem.

Instead, Gemzer says the guest, who had checked in for a one-month stay and left early without warning, damaged the valve that manages water flow from the tank to the bowl.

“A perfect storm,” she said.

The valve damage led to water running for at least 15 hours, ruining half her building with fecal water. Gemzer, 12 weeks pregnant at the time, contacted Airbnb, who allegedly told her she first needed to complete the repairs and then file a claim against the guest.

Gemzer says she spent “dozens of hours” trying to reach someone on the phone at Airbnb with no luck as she scrambled to get a construction estimate for the damage to meet the company’s 14-day claim window. Just the estimate to dry out the house, not including rebuilding it, was $130,000, Gemzer says.

The guest declined to pay the cost, so Gemzer was officially put into Airbnb’s claim system. She says over the course of six weeks, she exchanged about 93 emails with the company and its third-party adjuster. Airbnb refused to discuss the claim until the adjuster completed their investigation, but Gemzer says the adjuster never came to her home and it took them seven weeks to hire a plumber.

The plumber confirmed the issues were caused by the clog and broken valve. Gemzer says Airbnb emailed her alluding to doubt about the origin of the baby wipes and feces and hinted at toilet maintenance issues. The company offered her $6,000, Gemzer says, even though at this point in the saga she owed $52,743, including $19,451 in lost revenue for canceled bookings.

The user says she continued to go back and forth with Airbnb representatives since the disaster plumbing issue and has moved three times. She has no clue when her home will be livable again and says she’s on the hook for $300,379 in repair costs.

Airbnb offered her a “final offer” of about $31,000, she says.

Gemzer is sharing her story in the hope that Airbnb will help, particularly as she faces the challenge of securing temporary accommodation for herself, her two pets, and her soon-to-arrive baby.

“I truly cannot imagine that a company like Airbnb intends to leave hosts homeless and otherwise high and dry in their darkest moments,” she says. “Especially when the source of the hardship was 100% caused by guest damages.”

The post Wild Airbnb Saga Ends With Host ‘Pregnant, Homeless and $300,000 in Debt’ appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Sanchez walked her street with an album full of photographs and news clippings as she retold stories of the floods.

Pointing to one house, she recalled the death of her neighbor’s dog in 2004 when six feet of water poured into their garage shorting the electrical outlets. That family has since left the neighborhood.

The same 2004 flood devastated Sanchez’s home.

“I lost everything that was down in the basement,” Sanchez said. “My pictures, memories, things that I had from my kids, a sewing machine, everything that I had.”

The loss of irreplaceable items was only the start. The flooding damaged her home’s foundation, warped her garage door, left her drywall contaminated with mold, and flooded her backyard garden with residential, commercial and industrial waste.

Maria (left) and her mother, Victoria Sanchez, stand in front of their home on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco on Nov. 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

“We didn’t have flood insurance because we couldn’t afford it,” said Sanchez’s daughter Maria. “The house’s foundation is still damaged to this day.”

Neighbors recounted similar experiences of a 2014 flood that once again inundated Mission Terrace homes and businesses with sewage.

“We are always on edge for the next rain,” Sanchez said. “Until this is fixed, the flooding will likely happen again.”

Mission Terrace isn’t the only San Francisco neighborhood to suffer problems with destructive flooding that both residents and government agencies trace to the city’s failure to upgrade sections of its sewer system.

A home along Cayuga with permanent sandbags. (Courtesy of Casey Michie)

Frustrated with the inaction by the San Francisco government, neighbors from several neighborhoods, including parts of the Mission and West Portal areas, have banded together in a campaign called Solutions Not Sandbags to demand action from the city.

Problems with the sewer system have also drawn the attention of state and federal regulators.

In 2021, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a cleanup and abatement order, and the flooding prompted an order from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the city to begin monitoring and reporting sewage overflows like the ones on Cayuga Avenue.

A house is surrounded by sandbags on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco on Nov. 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

A review of hundreds of pages of court documents and studies, interviews with a dozen residents, experts and officials from multiple government agencies shows San Francisco has delayed upgrading sections of sewers that continue to cause damage to residents’ property.

“This flooding isn’t just rainwater,” said David Hooper, an advocate with Solutions Not Sandbags. “This is water mixed with sewage waste, this is contamination.”

Why it floods on Cayuga Avenue

Apart from some older sections of downtown Sacramento, San Francisco is the only California city served by a sewer system that collects both wastewater and stormwater in a single set of pipes.

According to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, each day the system handles roughly 80 million gallons of residential, commercial and industrial wastewater that is treated before being discharged into the bay or ocean.

When it rains, stormwater increases that flow dramatically, and city facilities collect and treat up to 500 million gallons a day.

Heavy rains can overwhelm the system, requiring excess flows of mixed sewage and stormwater to be discharged into nearby waters — something the SFPUC says happens about 10 times a year on average.

But sometimes those heavy flows hit bottlenecks in the system, forcing sewage up onto neighborhood streets before it can reach the discharge points.

One of the bottlenecks lies downstream of Cayuga Avenue, where a sewer main beneath Alemany Boulevard can’t handle the volume of water that arrives during prolonged heavy rain.

A map from the 2010 Sewer System Master Plan by the San Francisco Public Works showing where flood complaints are located on Cayuga Avenue and predictions of where floods will take place next over 5 years. (Courtesy of San Francisco Public Works)

Models created by the city’s Public Works department show that a five-year storm — a storm with a 20% chance of occurring in any given year — will trigger flows that exceed the capacity of the pipe beneath the boulevard and lead to flooding of Lower Alemany and along Cayuga Avenue.

Cayuga’s geographic setting is also a problem. The street runs downhill along the course of a natural stream. The lower, eastern end of the street butts up against Interstate 280 — which essentially acts as a dam to water flowing down the street. When the Alemany sewer main backs up, the lack of drainage further complicates the flooding in the area.

“Initially the Public Utilities Commission’s argument was that it’s the watershed causing the flooding, claiming that more green infrastructure will solve the problem,” said Lisa Dunseth, an advocate of Solutions Not Sandbags. “The problem is actually a structural engineering issue where the sewers are too small. And they knew it. And it’s been that way for over 50 years.”

In fact, problems with sewer capacity downstream of the Mission Terrace neighborhood were known more than 50 years ago.

In 1964, a project to enlarge a section of the sewer along lower Alemany Boulevard was listed as one of dozens of projects that might benefit from a bond issue on the city’s June ballot. The bond passed, but the sewer improvements never materialized.

Throughout the 1970s, improvements in the area were sidelined as the city invested in higher-priority projects to comply with new requirements enacted by the federal Clean Water Act.

In 2009 — five years after the flooding that beset Cayuga Avenue and destroyed Victoria Sanchez’s belongings — the SFPUC commissioned a new analysis of the sewer system and suggested needed improvements.

The resulting 2010 Sewer System Master Plan acknowledged the sewer bottleneck problem in the neighborhood and proposed two possible solutions costing roughly $250 million according to documents. A less costly “eastward solution” proposed building a 6,000-foot auxiliary sewer under Alemany Boulevard to aid in handling high flows during rain events, while the preferred “westward” solution recommended constructing a relief sewer that would route flow from the Cayuga area to terminate at Ocean Beach.

The 2010 Sewer System Master Plan evolved into the 2012 Sewer System Improvement Project in which the Lower Alemany solutions were not included due to “budget constraints and a desire to evaluate an integrated approach to Lower Alemany including gray and green infrastructure,” according to a statement from the SFPUC.

The continued inaction has led to further flooding and subsequent damage of residents’ homes in recent years. Nancy Huff and Bob Popko, who bought their house on Cotter Street in the Mission Terrace neighborhood in 2012, recounted a flood that occurred in 2014.

“We lost boxes and boxes of old childhood photographs. Things that were irreplaceable were just totally gone,” Huff said. “We had to replace the downstairs bathroom that had just been put in within less than a year. We had to cut out the damaged drywall, the tiling was ruined. It all had to be replaced because it just wouldn’t dry.”

After the 2014 flood, some Mission Terrace residents filed suit against the city and began demanding answers from officials at public meetings.

“The city was not responsive,” said Huff. “That is why there have been two lawsuits from this neighborhood against the city, both of which the city lost. We had the SFPUC and [former SFPUC Director] Harlan Kelly on our street over and over and over again, and they were just very hand-wavy and noncommittal on the issue.”

In 2018, eight years after the publication of the Sewer System Master Plan that identified needed improvements, the SFPUC included the Lower Alemany area into the Sewer System Improvement Plan.

“It’s kind of sad to me that San Francisco is not helping its residents, because we do pay property taxes like everyone else,” said Maria Sanchez.

State and federal regulators step in

The Clean Water Act requires cities to maintain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, which outlines the conditions under which pollutants can be released into waters under federal jurisdiction.

NPDES permits must be renewed every five years, and in 2019 San Francisco challenged new requirements added to its Oceanside Treatment Plant permit.

According to a requirement in the new permit, San Francisco would have to report discharges at any point of the sewer system, not just from outfalls along the coast.

In 2020, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board denied San Francisco’s challenges to the new permit. In a decision denying review, the board said the new reporting requirement is “an appropriate mechanism … to determine whether the permitted combined sewer system is operating in compliance with the permit, including the requirement to maximize storage without increasing upstream flooding into basements and streets, which can negatively impact human health and the environment.”

The new permit is currently on hold pending a city appeal to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Amid the city’s wrangling with the EPA, the regional branch of the state’s water quality agency also got involved in the issue of overflowing sewers. Under an agreement hammered out last year, the city will comply with an order from the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board to address flooding issues in three neighborhoods.

A scanned picture from Victoria Sanchez’s photo album of the aftermath of flooding along Cayuga Avenue on Feb. 25, 2004. (Photo courtesy of Victoria Sanchez)

The order requires the city to invest up to $600 million to fix the chronic overflow problems near 15th Avenue and Wawona Street in the city’s West Portal neighborhood, 17th and Folsom in the Mission and Lower Alemany downstream of Cayuga Avenue.

The project to address flooding in West Portal broke ground last year, with an estimated completion date of spring 2024.

The projects to remedy flooding at 17th and Folsom and Lower Alemany are still in the planning phases.

“The settlement will also allow the city one year to assess alternative designs for the projects that will benefit the Folsom and Lower Alemany neighborhoods,” said Joseph Sweiss, SFPUC press secretary. “Potential approaches involve both traditional capacity improvements and surface improvements, such as green infrastructure.”

During the SFPUC commission meeting on April 12, documents were presented outlining the potential solutions to address the flooding in the Lower Alemany and Cayuga areas.

The Alemany auxiliary solution, which was first proposed in the 1964 bond measure and then again in the 2010 Sewer System Master Plan, would install 6,000 feet of a 10-foot diameter pipe to alleviate pressure on the Alemany sewer.

Documents show that design completion for the Lower Alemany project is forecast for July 2024. The project is forecast to be complete in March 2028.

Still, residents of Mission Terrace are skeptical given the city’s track record with large capital improvement projects.

“If you look at Van Ness [rapid bus project], if you look at the Central Subway, construction on both projects were way over budget and years out of date,” Hooper said.

The SFPUC acknowledges that the sewer improvements will take time.

“Since these complex and large-scale capital projects take years, the SFPUC provides support and resources tailored to these neighborhoods, including but not limited to flood insurance resources, free sandbags coordinated and delivered to these residents, and expanded stormwater grants up to $100,000 to upgrade properties for stronger resilience and flood prevention measures,” said Sweiss.

And while this is good news for many residents, it is also frustrating that it has taken this long.

A house is surrounded by sandbags on Cayuga Avenue in San Francisco on Nov. 28, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

“Sandbags aren’t the answer. The Public Utilities Commission has given us the runaround time and time again, it took the State to step in to solve an issue that has been ongoing for decades,” said Dunseth of Solutions Not Sandbags.

For residents in Mission Terrace who sit in homes fortified by rows of sandbags anxiously anticipating the next rain, it’s now become a waiting game. Will the Alemany sewer, which the city has delayed upgrading for decades, be fixed in time to prevent yet another flood?

“It’s a hard issue of waiting until things settle down with the court system and planning and everything that goes on with that,” said Maria Sanchez. “While in the meantime, we have to sit here in a house that’s pretty much falling down because they can’t get their s— together.”

KQED’s Dan Brekke contributed to this story.

The City College of San Francisco Journalism Department produced this article. This project was supported by California Humanities Emerging Journalist Fellowship Program. For more information, visit www.calhum.org. 

Any views or findings expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The post ‘It is Been a Combat for Our Properties’: The Ongoing Saga to Repair San Francisco’s Sewers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Part of the issue with these cans has to do with the maintenance of them, which the city contracts out to a third party.

“The contract for these [renaissance] trash cans came about in a way that very possibly could have been corrupt,” said Supervisor Haney.

Walter Wong was a permit expediter in San Francisco who pleaded guilty in 2020 to charges of conspiracy. He — and then director of the Department of Public Works, Mohammed Nuru — worked together to trade city contract gifts. The contract to maintain San Francisco’s trash cans went to a company called Alternate Choice LLC — owned by a family member of Wong — in 2018.

A ‘big belly’ trash can in District 6. (Christopher J. Beale/KQED)

City supervisors like Haney tried for years to get the trash cans in their districts replaced with newer, more effective models but say it was Nuru who stood in the way.

“He was adamant in his protection of these broken trash cans. And I think it was pretty clear that he was protecting his buddies who were giving us really crappy cans,” Haney said.

Wong is now participating with federal investigators in the corruption probe against Nuru, who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges earlier this year after being arrested and indicted in 2020.

The road to the perfect can

Nuru did eventually set into motion a process to replace San Francisco’s green Renaissance cans with some new ones. But, off-the-rack cans — the kind you might find in another American city — weren’t considered suitable for the project.

The Department of Public Works want something tamper-proof, with wheels on the inner can so workers won’t get hurt emptying them, and a sensor that can tell when they’re full. Oh, and they have to be attractive. The department commissioned a custom-designed can.

The prototypes will cost an estimated $12,000 each and will be fabricated locally and tested alongside some off-the-rack designs. Gordon says the prototypes do cost a lot of money. “I don’t think anyone can say otherwise. But will it be money well spent? We hope so,” she said.

After prototyping, the selected can’s manufacturing is expected to cost less than half of the prototype, which is comparable to the price paid in other US cities.

The three trash can prototypes that will be created and tested in San Francisco. (Courtesy of Institute for Creative Integration)

This new-can-selection process has its critics. Supervisor Haney said, “Ultimately, San Francisco shouldn’t be in the trash can making business. The conditions that we face on our streets are not fundamentally different than an LA and New York, or Chicago, DC, Oakland, and there is plenty of data that we can look at in terms of prototypes, but here we are.”

The new cans

Three new trash can prototypes are being considered, with hopes they can solve many of the problems presented by the current cans.

The post The Sordid Saga of San Francisco’s Trash Cans appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

A seemingly endless amount of drama, name-calling, lawsuits and outrage from parents and city officials made the saga of San Francisco’s school board a riveting pandemic sideshow that is about to play out at the ballot box.

A special election on Tuesday will decide the fate of three school board members, all Democrats, in a vote that has divided the famously liberal city. It also motivated many Chinese residents to vote for the first time, driven by controversial school board decisions and a batch of unearthed anti-Asian tweets.

The parents who launched the recall effort say it was born of frustration at the board’s misplaced priorities, mishandling of a budget crisis and failure to focus on the fundamental task of reopening public schools during the pandemic. Most of San Francisco’s 50,000 public school students did not see the inside of a classroom for over a year, from March 2020 until August 2021.

“It comes down to incompetence,” said Siva Raj, a father of two who helped spearhead the recall effort. “The message we want to send is, if you don’t do the job you are elected do — your primary responsibility is to educate our children — you’re fired.”

Opponents call the recall a waste of taxpayer money and a right-wing attack on liberal San Francisco that is part of a national movement to oust progressives from power. Both sides agree that San Francisco’s school board and the city itself became the focus of an embarrassing national spotlight.

Organizers say they would recall all seven board members if they could, but only three have served long enough to face a challenge: Board President Gabriela Lopez and two commissioners, Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga.

One of the first issues to grab national attention was the board’s decision to rename 44 of the city’s public schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices. On the list were names like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and trailblazing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The renaming effort drew swift criticism for some of its targets, but also for its timing in January 2021, when public classrooms were closed because of COVID-19 restrictions. Angry parents asked why the board was focused on changing school names rather than getting children back into classrooms. The effort was also riddled with historical inaccuracies and shoddy research that drew criticisms of political correctness gone awry.

“It was so poorly executed that it made a mockery of the broader push for historical reckoning in the United States,” the San Francisco Chronicle said in an editorial endorsing the recall. “It alienated instead of educated, and invited national ridicule.”

Ultimately the plan was scrapped, after the city took the dramatic step of suing the board and school district to reopen more quickly. The lawsuit failed in court.

Then the board announced it was ending merit-based admissions at the city’s elite Lowell High School as part of a broader push for equity and inclusion. It cited “pervasive systemic racism” and a lack of diversity at Lowell, one of the country’s top public high schools, where the majority of students are Asian.

Many Asian Americans viewed the Lowell vote as a direct attack.

“It is so blatantly discriminatory against Asians,” said Ann Hsu, mother of two San Francisco high schoolers. “It is so apparent that the sole purpose is that there’s too many Asians at Lowell.”

The vote blindsided the community, and a court ultimately reversed the decision, finding in favor of a Lowell alumni group that sued the board. The group argued the board failed to place the vote on its agenda, violating California’s open meetings law.

Hsu and other parents formed a group called the Chinese/API Voter Outreach Taskforce in December, which she calls “the Chinese arm of the recall group.” Holding voter drives and spreading word in San Francisco’s Chinese-language newspapers, the group helped register over 560 new voters.

San Francisco’s soaring cost of living has pushed out families for years, leaving the city with the lowest share of children under 18 — just 13% — of America’s 100 most populous cities, according to 2020 US Census data. That made school board elections a low priority for most voters.

“That’s how these people got elected, because nobody was paying attention,” said Hsu. “But now, we’re paying attention.”

Collins has faced more criticism than her two colleagues, after recall organizers dug up 2016 tweets in which she said Asian Americans used “white supremacist” thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students, prompting her school board colleagues to strip Collins of her role as vice president.

Collins, who is Black, apologized for the tweets which she said were taken out of context, and then south of the school district and five fellow board members for $87 million, saying they violated her free speech rights. That suit was also tossed. Collins, who is aligned with Lopez on many issues, says the recall is part of a Republican-led effort to dismantle a progressive school board, though there is no evidence to back that claim.

Collins says she is proud of trying to bring more diversity to Lowell, which dropped its admissions test for the incoming class of fall 2021 before the decision was overturned in court. The numbers of Hispanic and Black students increased this year when the change was in place, while the numbers of Asian and white students decreased.

“We desegregated a school. Lowell now has the most diverse incoming class that it ever has had,” Collins said in an email. “I want to be on that side of history.”

Collins and Lopez call the recall a waste of time and money, noting another election is just nine months away.

“People want us to say we were wrong, we regret doing what we did, we’re sorry. And that will never be something I will do,” Lopez said recently on a local podcast, Latina Latino Latinx News.

Lopez, 31, said under her leadership the board addressed long-standing issues like school renaming and the admissions process, but they “blew up” because of racism. She called the recall of an opportunity “to bring down someone who is me,” a young Latina woman.

If a majority of voters supports recalling any of the three, the mayor would appoint their replacements to serve until the November election.

“Sadly, our school board’s priorities have often been severely misplaced,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in her endorsement of the recall. “Our kids must come first.”

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Follow @ktar923

FILE – A pedestrian walks below a sign for Dianne Feinstein Elementary School in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2020. In a city with the lowest percentage of children of all major American cities, school board elections in San Francisco have often been an afterthought. One of the first issues to garner national attention was the board’s decision to rename 44 of the city’s public schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and injustice. On the list were names like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and trailblazing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

“/>

A pedestrian walks past a San Francisco Unified School District office building in San Francisco, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. A seemingly endless amount of drama, name-calling, lawsuits _ and outrage from parents and city officials _ made the saga of San Francisco’s school board a riveting pandemic sideshow that is about to play out at the ballot box. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

“/>

The post Saga of San Francisco’s college board heads to the poll field appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

In der Lobby des Emporium SF blinkt ein rosa Neonlicht, und das Lebenszeichen, das von der NoPa-Arcade-Bar ausgeht, verwirrt mich sofort.

Es ist ein nieseliger Donnerstagabend im Mai, und ich nehme gleichzeitig einen Schluck von meinem Sonic Boom Old Fashioned – einem von „Street Fighter“ inspirierten Cocktail – und versuche, über die Trennwand meines Parklet-Standes zu blicken, um einen besseren Überblick über die Vorgänge zu erhalten innerhalb des neu eröffneten Raumes. Es ist kurz nach 18 Uhr, während einer normalerweise geschäftigen Happy Hour, aber die Geräusche des Lachens, die sich mit den mechanischen Melodien von Vintage-Flipperspielen und den Cyber-Explosionen klassischer Favoriten wie „Galaga“ vermischen, sind verstummt.

Aus diesem Grund war ich so überrascht, als sich einer der Mitarbeiter dem Stand näherte, an dem mein Partner und ich saßen, und uns sagte, wir könnten ein weiteres Getränk im Parklet bestellen, wenn wir wollten, aber die Bar öffnete sich um 19 Uhr

“Inwieweit?” Fragte ich ungläubig.

“Spiele, Getränke, alles”, sagte er. “Und wir zeigen das Warriors-Spiel auf einem 50-Fuß-Bildschirm.”

Mein Partner und ich sahen uns aus den Augenwinkeln an. Wir wussten, was zu tun war.

Arcade-Spiele auf dem Umweg in San Francisco tragen Schilder, in denen Kunden aufgefordert werden, soziale Distanzierung zu üben.

Patricia Chang / Special zu SFGATE

Obwohl San Francisco gerade in die gelbe Reihe eingetreten ist und Bars zum ersten Mal seit über einem Jahr wieder in Innenräumen ihren Betrieb aufnehmen können, gehören Arcade-Bars zu den letzten öffentlichen Bereichen, die die sprichwörtliche Ziellinie des Wiedereröffnungsprozesses überqueren. Zu Beginn der Pandemie gab es die Sorge, dass sich COVID-19 leicht auf kontaminierten Oberflächen ausbreiten könnte, und aufgrund ihrer taktilen Natur waren die Arcade-Bars in San Francisco besonders schlimmen Umständen ausgesetzt.

Die CDC hat inzwischen bekannt gegeben, dass das Risiko, dass jemand durch Oberflächenübertragung infiziert wird, als gering eingestuft wird. Die lang verschlossenen, spielorientierten Veranstaltungsorte der Stadt hatten jedoch nur wenige Möglichkeiten, Einnahmen zu generieren, und sie befürchteten, dass ihnen die Zeit ausgeht.

Emporium versuchte, alternative Pläne auszuarbeiten, die ihr Hauptprodukt – Arcade-Spiele – mit der unmöglichen Situation eines Parklets im Freien beinhalteten, und untersuchte Szenarien, in denen die schweren, alternden Schränke nach draußen gebracht wurden, wo sie wohl nicht hingehörten. In der Zwischenzeit wurde SoMas Coin-Op im November endgültig geschlossen, sodass in San Francisco nur noch zwei Arcade-Bars übrig waren: das Emporium SF, das Anfang Mai sein neu erbautes Parklet ohne Spiele enthüllte, und der Umweg im Castro (dazu später mehr). )

“Es war offensichtlich sozusagen eine Achterbahnfahrt”, sagte Emporium-Mitbegründer Danny Marks, der 2012 mit seinem Bruder Doug das Arcade-Bar-Franchise gründete. Es verfügt über sechs Standorte im ganzen Land: vier in Chicago, einschließlich der ersten Niederlassung in Wicker Park; zwei weitere in San Francisco und Oakland; und ein neuer Raum im AREA15-Viertel von Las Vegas, der im Februar eröffnet wurde.

Der Außenposten von Emporium in San Francisco ist mit 12.000 Quadratmetern der ehemalige historische Harding Theatre und mit Abstand der größte der Kette. Es war auch “wohl der erfolgreichste Ort”, zumindest vor der Pandemie, sagte Marks. Mit seinen nostalgischen Formen der Unterhaltung inmitten einer nachtclubähnlichen Atmosphäre mit DJs und Tanz war es der ideale Ort, um sich ungezwungen zu treffen – aber er glaubt, dass diese Aspekte des Erfolgs von Emporium sie auch zurückhielten.

Zu Beginn der Pandemie gab es die Sorge, dass sich COVID-19 leicht auf kontaminierten Oberflächen ausbreiten könnte, und aufgrund ihrer taktilen Natur waren die Arcade-Bars in San Francisco besonders schlimmen Umständen ausgesetzt.

Patricia Chang / Special zu SFGATE

“Wir sind in gewisser Hinsicht die schlimmste von beiden Welten”, sagte er mit einem trockenen Kichern. „Wir sind nicht wie ein Restaurant oder eine traditionelle Bar, in der die Leute die meiste Zeit sitzen. Wir sind eher ein Ort, an dem man herumlaufen und sich unterhalten kann, und das ist für die Übertragung des Virus förderlicher als das Berühren der Tasten eines Arcade-Spiels. Wir haben bis vor kurzem nie wirklich versucht, eine Zwischeneröffnung durchzuführen, da das Servieren eines Getränks an einem Tisch eine solche Abweichung von unserer normalen Erfahrung darstellt. “

Die Tatsache, dass es sich doch nach innen öffnen konnte, machte unseren Last-Minute-Besuch am Donnerstag umso aufregender. Als mein Partner und ich versuchten, die Tatsache zu verbergen, dass wir schnell durch den Eingang gingen – es war schließlich unsere erste richtige Nacht seit über einem Jahr -, entdeckten wir schnell die Quelle der blinkenden Neonlichter, die meine Aufmerksamkeit früher auf sich zogen: „ Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. “ Ich wünschte, ich könnte Ihnen sagen, dass dort unsere Nacht begann, aber verständlicherweise war sie nicht zum Spielen verfügbar, und es gab auch keine Handvoll anderer Arcade-Spiele für zwei Spieler – möglicherweise, um Platz zwischen den Gästen zu schaffen.

Stattdessen haben wir uns für eine Einzelspieler-Version von „Time Crisis 4“ entschieden, bevor wir uns dem Wesentlichen zuwandten: „Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles“ und einem Flipper-Spiel zum Thema „Revenge from Mars“. Es war der größte Spaß, den ich seit Monaten hatte, und obwohl mein Partner und ich beide vollständig geimpft sind und zusammen leben, wurden alle anderen Sorgen, die ich möglicherweise um meine Sicherheit hatte, durch die verfügbaren Händedesinfektionsstationen und das sorgfältige Abwischen des Personals unterdrückt jeden Arcade-Automaten nach jedem Gebrauch herunterfahren. Aber als wir in den zweiten Stock mit Blick auf die Bar gingen, um Billard zu spielen, fiel mir etwas ein.

Der Ort war völlig tot. Ich konnte nicht einmal genug Leute zählen, um mich für “Killer Queen” (eine beliebte 10-Spieler-Arcade-Begeisterung, über die ich 2019 geschrieben habe) zu sammeln.

Es ist definitiv erwähnenswert, dass die Bar mit 25% ihrer üblichen Kapazität betrieben wurde und dass die Nachricht von ihrer sanften Wiedereröffnung größtenteils Mundpropaganda zu sein schien. Aus introvertierter Sicht war diese heruntergewählte Atmosphäre eine Art wahr gewordener Traum. Ich konnte zum ersten Mal seit über einem Jahr Billard spielen, ohne dass ein zufälliger Fremder meinen Hals hinunter atmete und darauf wartete, dass sie an die Reihe kamen. Ich konnte Skee-Ball nach Herzenslust spielen, ohne mich schlecht zu fühlen, wenn ich das Spiel verpatzte.

Der Blick aus dem zweiten Stock auf das Emporium SF, das am vergangenen Donnerstag zum ersten Mal in Innenräumen wieder geöffnet wurde.

Amanda Bartlett / SFGATE

Trotzdem fehlte mir der gemeinsame Aspekt der Arcade-Bar-Erfahrung – das Gefühl einer Gruppe von Freunden, die mich anfeuerten oder sich mit einem Fremden auf spielerische Wettkämpfe einließen. Der Vermischungsaspekt, den Marks mir während unseres früheren Gesprächs erwähnt hatte, war genau das, was fehlte.

Als in den letzten Jahren Arcade-Bars auftauchten, zog es mich zunächst an, weil sie mich an die längst vergangenen Pizzarestaurants, Kinolobbys und Eisbahnen meiner Kindheit erinnerten. Die Arcade-Spiele, die wir heute sehen, hatten wahrscheinlich ein früheres Leben in einem dieser Räume, und die Rolle, die sie als interaktive Zeitkapseln spielen, fasziniert mich. In eine Arcade-Bar zu gehen ist nicht so, als würde man zum x-ten Mal allein auf meinem Nintendo Switch „Stardew Valley“ auf meinem Nintendo Switch spielen. Durch das Zeitlimit und das rundenbasierte Gameplay fühlt sich das Spiel wie ein Erlebnis für sich an.

Aber vielleicht am wichtigsten ist, dass sie mir eine organische Ausrede gegeben haben, um mit neuen Menschen, von denen einige meine Freunde geworden sind, auf eine Weise zu interagieren, die sich nicht gezwungen oder banal anfühlt.

Marks sagte, er sei optimistisch über die Rückkehr der Öffentlichkeit zu Arcade-Bars, unter Berufung auf steigende Impfraten und die sorgfältig umgesetzten Sicherheitsmaßnahmen von Emporium, aber Shawn Vergara, Inhaber des Umweges im Castro, sei sich nicht so sicher. Er und seine Schwester-Geschäftspartnerin Tiffny Vergara Chung planen, Anfang Juli ihre eigene Arcade-Bar und ihr eigenes Restaurant wieder zu eröffnen, wenn alles nach Plan läuft, aber das 7-jährige Unternehmen steht immer noch vor einer Reihe von Rückschlägen.

„Wir sind buchstäblich von einem PPP-Darlehen zum nächsten gesprungen und beantragen jetzt die RRF [Restaurant Revitalization Fund] und auf Nadeln und Stifte warten, um zu sehen, ob wir die Ziellinie erreichen “, sagte Vergara, die auch die nahe gelegene Bar Blackbird betreibt. „Ich denke, so fühlt es sich an. Sie legen all Ihre Träume und Hoffnungen auf den Tisch und übernehmen die finanzielle Verantwortung für die Eröffnung eines Ortes. Die Art und Weise, wie die Regierung damit umgegangen ist, hat sich einfach so angefühlt, als wären wir wirklich ausgeraubt worden. Sie waren nicht bereit, sich um all diese Geschäfte zu kümmern. “

Shawn Vergara, Mitinhaber des Umweges, spielt Flipper.

Patricia Chang / Special zu SFGATE

Die Detour, die erste neue Spielhalle seit Jahrzehnten in San Francisco, wurde 2014 als Brewcade eröffnet und 2019 unter ihrem heutigen Namen umbenannt – eine Hommage an die ehemalige LGBTQ-Bar in der Market Street, in der Vergara jeden Montag Flipper „Addams Family“ spielte .

Der Umweg war nur acht Monate vor der Pandemie geöffnet. Zu dieser Zeit hatte Vergara das Gefühl, dass sich die Arcade-Bar in das lebhafte Konzept einfügt, das er sich immer vorgestellt hatte: Sieben Nächte in der Woche war viel los, mit einer Vielzahl von Programmen, darunter monatliches Freispiel, Drag-Trivia, „Killer Queen“ und Flipper-Ligen zu “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Uhrenpartys.

“Diese Arcade-Spiele der alten Schule haben Menschen zusammengebracht”, sagte Vergara. „An den Automaten spielen, Ein- oder Zwei-Spieler-Spiele spielen, die Joysticks berühren. Es ist ein Weg, dich zurückzubringen. … Du bist gezwungen, draußen zu sein und zu interagieren, zu lachen und wieder ein Kind zu sein, Kontakte zu knüpfen und von Angesicht zu Angesicht zu reden. “

Der wachsende Erfolg des Umweges sei jedoch abgebrochen worden, weil er nicht in dem von ihm erhofften Ausmaß in die Gemeinschaft eingebettet werden könne. Insgesamt ist die Arcade-Bar seit elf Monaten geschlossen, vor allem, weil die Versuche, zwischen den Stillständen wieder zu öffnen und Sitzgelegenheiten im Freien anzubieten, erfolglos waren.

“Wenn alle Spiele beleuchtet sind, leuchtet es”, sagte Vergara. „Es fühlte sich an, als hätte uns jemand das Leben geraubt. Die Seele der Bar war einfach weg. “

Das Arcade-Spiel “The Simpsons” gehört zu den 66 Schränken, die auf dem Umweg gespielt werden können.

Patricia Chang / Special zu SFGATE

San Franciscos Übergang in die gelbe Liga hätte es ihm technisch ermöglichen können, die Bar am vergangenen Donnerstag wieder zu eröffnen und alle 66 seiner Retro-Arcade-Spiele zurückzubringen, aber er ist immer noch besorgt. In Bezug auf ein kürzlich geführtes Interview zwischen Mayor London Breed und SFGATE fügte Vergara hinzu, dass es immer noch möglich ist, dass die Stadt dem Staat nicht folgt, wenn sie ihr farbcodiertes Tier-System am 15. Juni vollständig wiedereröffnet und in den Ruhestand versetzt – und dann glaubt er, dass sich die Menschen sicher fühlen werden genug, um zum Umweg zurückzukehren.

„Selbst wenn wir zu 50% ausgelastet wären, lohnt es sich für uns einfach nicht. Finanziell hatten wir Geld ausgeblutet “, sagte Vergara.

Zusätzlich zum Warten auf die Genehmigung des RRF-Darlehens muss er noch eine Reihe neuer Mitarbeiter vor dem Haus und in der Küche einstellen, nachdem viele seiner früheren Mitarbeiter keine andere Wahl hatten, als aufgrund ihrer Probleme nach Hause oder aus San Francisco zurückzukehren Einkommensverlust während der Pandemie.

“Es fühlt sich wirklich wie ein Verbrechen gegen unsere Branche an”, sagte Vergara. „Und es kostet viel, Dinge hochzufahren, neue Mitarbeiter einzustellen, sie zu schulen und die Küche wieder in Schwung zu bringen. Wenn alles gut geht und wir die RRF erhalten, könnten wir immer noch nicht überleben, wenn wir keine Geldinfusion erhalten, aber wir haben Notfallpläne. Wir freuen uns sehr, wieder ins Geschäft zu kommen, aber wir möchten sicherstellen, dass wir nicht im schlimmsten Fall landen. “

Er ist vorsichtig optimistisch, aber auch bestrebt, zu den spontanen Interaktionen und der Sozialisation zurückzukehren, die die Spiele des Umweges bieten – etwas, das seiner Meinung nach der Stadt schmerzlich fehlt.

Dennoch hat eines Vergara in den letzten Wochen Hoffnung gegeben.

“Die Impfungen haben uns am meisten verändert”, sagte er mit einem Lachen. “Kein Wortspiel beabsichtigt.”

The post The saga of San Francisco’s final arcade bars appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.