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It is just after 8 AM on an October morning. I am waiting to be fingerprinted and have my mug shot taken. My companions in the season are in stitches, giggling mirthfully after hearing the reason why I am here, Why am I, a law-abiding citizen, here at 850 Bryant St. and being booked on criminal charges?
Because I have dared to want to breathe fresh air and be treated with respect by my neighbor, that's why.
It all began one September when I passed by the empty storefront next door one afternoon. It had been empty for quite a long time. When I first moved in, a fantastic Chinese market was here. I could almost literally fire up the wok, go down and buy some tofu, cut them up and start stir frying. The market closed after it faced a rent increase. Anyway, back to the story...
The men tell me a "Burger King" is going in here. I try telling this story around the neighborhood, but nobody believes me. I call around to the various supervisor's offices. None of them can find a permit for 1325 9th Avenue.
I think that, surely, there must be some form of public notice if a Burger King is to be built here. Not!
We find out only too late regulations allow businesses not to post a permit during the appeal period if they are under 1,000 sq. ft. The Burger King has cut off a third of the space to qualify. This was originally intended to be "offices, before the Planning Department advised the owners that a door between the two would make the business over 1,000 sq. ft. To date, this large, windowless room — now accessed by a greasy passageway — serves no purpose.
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| Burger King owner Julie Lee. Her tactics are to call anyone who disagrees with her a "racist"! |
What happened next would serve to fill this entire issue. I called the Burger King owner and the property owner (Ulie Lee) both of whom claimed that did not know what restaurant was going in. A few days later, at a community meeting, they spilled the goods. A Burger King was going in. Local businessman Rolf Mueller responded spitefully: "We all joked that one day a Burger King would open and we would all have to move!" At the meeting the owner promised, there would be no smell or gaudy sign. Promises, promises.
Thousands of people signed a petition against the Burger King, and a hearing was held in front of the Board of Appeals. Each side was given a generous three minutes to speak: Democracy in action! Having digested its six minutes of testimony, the erudite body made its decision. Two members of the board spoke against us. One appeared to have been coached by the owner's lawyer.
We had hearings before the Board of Supervisors as well. To little effective purpose as the Board has no jurisdiction in such a case. The Burger King owner assured the supes that the neighborhood was "already ruined." The property owner recruited cohorts who brandished placards alleging "racism" and "discrimination" against "poor people."
Construction continued. Constant banging. A smokestack right next to my kitchen window. A loud fan unit right near it. A noisy intercom system (later shut down by the Health Department). No response from the owner to complaints from me and my neighbors upstairs as well as his neighbors directly above him.
Sure enough, our environs suddenly smelled like, well, like a Burger King! Just as we had predicted, bright paper products advertising British multinational Metropolitan PLC's restaurant chain materialized all over the neighborhood. There were occasional gang fights in the parking lot across the street, and the usual types hanging outside.
My landlord wrote Mr. Szeto a letter detailing his concerns. On Jan. 3, Mr. Szeto replied : "Should you or your tenants feel insecure or unsafe due to someone hanging around outside of your premises, you should consider calling the police to escort you into your house."
Being aware of what fast food dives were all about, I was prepared for some difficulties and hardship. But there were other problems I had never even dreamed of, not having lived next door to a Burger King before.
For example, there was the little matter of an 18 wheeler truck pulling up nightly to make deliveries at four to five in the morning. And the alarm going off by "accident," not once but many times! The doors were also kept propped wide open, allowing a fetid cloud of grease to escape. When others queried him about the situation, the owner would respond: "If you don't like it, move!" For myself he reserved such choice pejoratives as "racist" and "sonofabitch." "That's what I learned in America," he maintains.
A few protesters materialized. The owner tried to intimidate them by offering them his card and his lawyer's card. He threatened to sue my landlord because I had a "No Burger King" sign in the window. After hearing this, I changed the sign to read "Boycott Burger King."
Although I had opposed the "restaurant," I had never envisioned its true consequences on my life. After all, all of the fast food restaurants I was familiar with kept their doors closed. And they still stunk! And, never having been near a Burger King at 4 AM, I could have no notion that they might receive deliveries at that hour.
Receiving no response to verbal and written requests, I began releasing the spring on one of the owner's doors. Unbeknownst to me, the owner was filing police reports each time I did so. He would also file other reports which contained slanderous allegations which were completely untrue. The owner has filed and continues to file police reports just about every time someone burps! Any time someone enters his restaurant to lodge a protest he will pull out a polaroid camera to take a picture.
I would often happen upon the owner in front of his restaurant or about to make a getaway in his Benz. I would politely request him to keep his doors closed. He would respond with a verbal stream of abuse which we will not repeat here. Letters to him from Supervisor Tom Ammiano and a request to mediate at Community Boards also did no good. I asked several police officers to have a discussion with him, but not one would. The owner refused to discuss the situation at all.
| Read about corruption and expediter Walter Wong |
One day I entered my apartment, closed the door, and heard a crash. I reopened the door and looked down. A pane on the front door had been smashed! Looking out onto the street a few minutes later I saw the owner having his hand bandaged by the emergency response unit. A few days later my landlord discovered that someone had broken the door's and destroyed the bell system.
I thought that this incident might have given the owner pause to reconsider his tactics and that he might want now to meet so I contacted Community Boards again. I was wrong. He declined again.
A few days later, as I was walking down the street, past the stench, he yelled at me "Don't touch that door," He then invited me to "fight." I had a bus to catch to get to a class and, in any event, had no interest in fighting him (or anyone else for that matter). I crossed the street. He continued to yell at me across the street and then crossed over and yelled at a distance, inviting me to fight!
In June, I received a subpoena to appear on charges of "harassment" in Superior Court on June 4. Presiding Judge Richard A. Kramer appeared genuinely bemused by the case, a respite from his usual diet of stalkers and batterers. After one of the owner's employees testified that I threw "garbage" into the store, Justice Kramer inquired as to the contents of the litter. I could see his eyes light up as he heard the response "Burger King cup and wrapper." Return to sender!
Despite my request, Judge Kramer declined to appoint a mediator. I was told that I could go into the store to discuss complaints. "I'm not going to shut off your access to him," he assured me. "What if I don't want to talk to him?" the owner countered.
In any event, I was instructed not to release the catch on his spring-operated door or to place trash in front of the doors. This posed no problemfor me, as the doors would just get closed again anyway.
Life went on. The streets remained littered and the doors remained propped open like the gaping jaws of a decomposing fish. Burger King employees continued to smoke cigarettes and drink on my front steps, the owner apparently unwilling to loan them a chair. The burglar alarm continued to go off, the fan by my kitchen window had a malfunctioning belt, and the ownercontinued to curse at me (and file another slew of false police reports).
Judge Kramer suggested that I pursue legal remedies. The Planning Commission wrote the owner a letter, informing him that he was in violation. I would politely bring the subject up when I would talk to the owner about other matters such as the fanbelt falling off the roller. It would meet the usual obscene vitriol in response.
A letter I wrote about the situation was published by the Sunset Beacon this past September. In it, I asked the owner to keep at least one of his doors closed.
I continued my calls to Fred E. B. Phillips, the area's regional franchise owner supervisor. Mr. Phillips assured me that he was working on the delivery problem. In the past, he had assured me that Mr. Szeto's restaurant operated most efficiently with the doors closed and that the doors would be closed as soon as he made repairs of some sort. The deliveries continued.
Then I got a call from a police officer at 850 Bryant. I was invited to come down and turn myself in. The officer showed me the stream of fallacious police reports filed by the owner.
My case remains in limbo as I write. But what lesson can we, as concerned citizens of San Francisco, learn from this episode?
The laws must be changed. There is much to do but here is a few places where we can start:
Þ The City's computer system must be fixed. Perhaps this is just coincidence but the owner is opening a second unit in a historic building at Fell and Divisadero. (He apparently wants to run a chain). And the permit could not be found on the computer during the appeal period.
Þ Deliveries must be banned between 11 PM and 7 AM in Neighborhood Commercial Districts.
Þ All budding businesses must post a notice during the appeal period. There can be no exceptions because of size.
Þ "Friends of Planning," a group that does just as you might guess, must be abolished.
Let's save San Francisco before we become Frisco with Fog!
Please give me your comments. They'll all be posted.
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