Hi Everyone,
We’ll be meeting up at Ritual tonight at 6pm to get some more posters up around the neighborhood. If you want to do some walking this evening feel free to come by, (though you may definitely want to bring an umbrella).
Hope to see you there.
PS – For info on writing letters see the post below.
Hi Everybody,
These are the people to send your letters to. We recommend that you send a letter to every person on this list. Remember, keep your letters short and to the point: a mega-chain like American Apparel will change the unique feel of Valencia Street (for an example letter click here). Please remember to list your address, especially if you live close to 988 Valencia Street, and also be sure that your subject reads: 988 Valencia – Case No. 2008.0720C. The more letters they receive the more the folks at City Hall will know how the neighborhood feels about letting American Apparel onto Valencia Street. Please take the time to write a letter:
Pilar LaValley
San Francisco Planning Department
Pilar.Lavalley@sfgov.org
Bevan Dufty
District 8 Supervisor
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
David Campos
District 9 Supervisor
David.Campos@sfgov.org
Christina Olague
President of the SF Planning Commission
c_olague@yahoo.com
Lawrence B. Badiner
Zoning Administrator
San Francisco Planning Department
Larry.Badiner@sfgov.org
Gavin Newsom
Mayor of San Francisco
Gavin.Newsom@sfgov.org
The following was posted by Stephen in response to some comments on this SF Bay Guardian article:
It’s amazing that if you walk down Valencia and you talk to people the residents and businesses are overwhelmingly against American Apparel moving in. And yet so many people commenting on the blogs are in favor of American Apparel. Often with deliberately misleading arguments like trying to claim that American Apparel “isn’t actually a chain store.”
I spent all last night walking up and down Valencia talking to people, visiting stores, collecting signatures. The Mission is against American Apparel. If we took a vote of people that live and work within four blocks of the proposed store 90% of the people would vote against it. We’re not letting them ruin Valencia.
If you don’t believe me, maybe you should stop by a Valencia business and ask them to put a “save American Apparel” sign in the window. See how they feel about that.
Hi everybody,
Don’t forget about tonight’s meeting at The Makeout Room at 7pm. We’ll have posters and fliers to hand out as well as a discussion about how to best utilize the next two weeks before the hearing at City Hall.
Also, San Francisco resident Tom Price did a nice little write up about our efforts at his website. Rallying around Eileen’s inspiring letter to the public, Tom decided to write his own letter to Pilar LaValley at the San Francisco Planning Department, and encourages others to do the same. Tom’s letter is below, but you should read his whole post here to get all the info you need to write your own.
January 22, 2009
Dear Planner LaValley,
My name is Tom Price, I am a resident of San Francisco and live in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. Along with my family, I often visit the Mission, and enjoy the many distinct stores and businesses there. Valencia Street is a uniquely San Francisco institution, a hold out against the cookie cutter chain stores that litter other cities across our country. A place like this needs to be celebrated and protected.
Please register my opposition to the proposed American Apparel store on Valencia Street. There is a place for chain stores, but it is not on Valencia Street. Please also keep me informed of any public meetings, hearings, or comment periods regarding this issue.
Thank you,
Tom Price
The letter below was written by Eileen Hassi, owner of Ritual Roasters, to alert her customers, neighbors, and friends why she doesn’t want American Apparel on Valencia Street, and to inform them what they can do about it.
Hey friends, neighbors, coffee-drinkers,
American Apparel has announced its plans to open at 988 Valencia St, between 20th & 21st.
If you already know this and want to know what you can do, skip to the bottom of this email.
My business, Ritual Coffee Roasters, would likely benefit in the short term from such a popular place opening less than a block away. And in these more trying economic times (yes, people are drinking less coffee!), it would be maybe easier to cave into the desperate measure of allowing this to happen.
However, I’m extremely opposed to allowing a formula retail (chain) store onto Valencia St.
I frequently have people come to Valencia St to check out Ritual and have a coffee. Out-of-towners then ask what else they should do while they are in the neighborhood. I take pride in directing them to the many unique offerings this neighborhood has: check out the bizarro furniture at X-21, stroll down to Paxton Gate and visit the taxidermied mice, stop into 826 for an eye-patch, cross the street for hand-made books, meander over to Dolores Park etc. Having an internationally recognizable store in the midst of it would definitely take away from our distinctive neighborhood.
This isn’t an attack on American Apparel. But as far as City Planning is concerned, once a neighborhood has allowed one formula retail to open, it must allow others. After the Kentucky Fried Chicken at 22nd St closed its doors, another fast food chain tried to take over the space. My neighbors here fought a long, hard battle to make sure that didn’t happen.
We must send a message to City Planning that we want to keep Valencia Street as it is now, a corridor of outstanding independent businesses.
OK, OK, likely if you’re on this list, I don’t actually need to convince you of anything, just tell you what you can do about it:
1. Come to the planning meeting tonight:
We’ll be having a STOP AMERICAN APPAREL meeting this Thursday, January 22nd, 7pm, at The Makeout Room.
Please come by. We’ll have full color posters for you to take with you as well as petitions and postcards. You can help stop American Apparel from moving in at 988 Valencia (it’s not too late!). If you have any questions we’ll try to answer them. If you have concerns this is the place to raise them.
The meeting is free and the posters and postcards are free. Everybody’s welcome.
2. Write a letter to the Planner in charge of this case:
Subject: 988 Valencia – Case No. 2008.0720C
M. Pilar LaValley
Preservation Technical Specialist/Planner
City & County of San Francisco Planning Department
1650 Mission Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94103
pilar.lavalley@sfgov.org
3. Come to the hearing, Thursday February 5th
Case No. 2008.0720C
Call 558-6422 after Monday the 2nd for a more specific hearing time
4. Join the Google group for email updates:
http://groups.google.com/group/stop-american-apparel?hl=en
Thanks!,
Eileen
Click here to subscribe to our mailing list:
Or send an email to stop-american-apparel-subscribe@googlegroups.com
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Hey Everyone,
We’ll be having a STOP AMERICAN APPAREL meeting this Thursday, January 22nd, 7pm, at The Makeout Room.
Please come by. We’ll have full color posters for you to take with you as well as petitions and postcards. You can help stop American Apparel from moving in at 988 Valencia (it’s not too late!). If you have any questions we’ll try to answer them. If you have concerns this is the place to raise them.
The meeting is free and the posters and postcards are free. Everybody’s welcome.
Hope to see you Thursday.
As of 2008 American Apparel employs over 10,000 people and operates over 200 retail locations in 18 countries. Good for them. But yes, it is a big chain store … in fact, it is an international chain store (my apologies, I had been referring to it as a “national chain,” my mistake).
I wish to yet again state, this is not about being anti-American Apparel. It is about trying to keep large corporate shops off of Valencia Street. We believe Valencia offers a unique atmosphere thanks to its many small and locally owned stores, an atmosphere that we would like to preserve. We live here and we care about our community. That is why we protest the attempt of this large chain store to open at 988 Valencia Street.
Update: It should be also noted that Dov Charney, American Apparel’s President and CEO, was named one of Southern California’s top 100 most powerful people by the LA Times. So again, a small company this is not.
More media as the word gets out that people are taking a stand (to see other coverage click here). A quick note to folks doing write-ups: this is not hipsters versus American Apparel (though I understand how that makes for a good headline). This is a grassroots movement that has the support of local business owners and people who live in the neighborhood of all different backgrounds.
Below is a post I wrote last night about gathering signatures for a petition to keep American Apparel out of 988 Valencia Street.
I went out on Valencia tonight to collect signatures in support of not letting a national chain store move in on our street. I whipped up a petition (without the help of a lawyer) and hit the streets with my bike under me and hoping for the best.
Our ultimate goal … the goal … is to get people from the neighborhood (especially those who live and/or work/own a business within 4 blocks of 988 Valencia) to attend the planning meeting at City Hall in room 400, at 1:30pm on February 5th. But we’re aware that it’s hard for regular citizens to get an afternoon off from work to head to the Civic Center in hopes of saving their neighborhood. So I figured a petition couldn’t hurt.
With dreams of carrying boxes full of signed papers into the meeting I decided to test the waters tonight by trying to gather a mere one hundred signatures.
Setting out I knew that most of the folks I know in the neighborhood wouldn’t like the idea of a national corporate chain store opening up on Valencia. But what I didn’t expect was the overwhelming support and curiosity from people I didn’t know. The response to my requests for signatures was immediate. Every shop I walked into, every bar I visited; people not only signed the petition, but asked how they could get involved (I told them about the action/discussion meeting this Thursday, January 22nd, at the Makeout Room at 7pm … I encourage anyone interested, especially business owners, to come).
I had over one hundred signatures in less than two hours. I left a stack of petition papers at Ritual coffee shop, Lost Weekend Video, and hope to leave more in other stores on Valencia street (please drop a line to let us know if you own a business on Valencia and want to have a petition at your establishment).
One person tonight questioned why I was a gathering signatures. The young man, after being made to understand that I wasn’t being paid, let it be known that he believed chain stores are a part of development. After I explained what happened to the Haight, and Manhattan for that matter, in the 90s (start letting in national chain stores and the neighborhood loses its soul) he said, “Exactly, and when it happens here the cool neighborhood will be somewhere else.”
“What about the people who have lived here for more than a decade,” I asked, “ … more than that? Those who don’t want to just drift to the next ‘cool neighborhood’ like yourself but want to stay in their own?” I asked. Rent control living. Families. Investments in apartments. Business owners like Dema who have invested their all into the Valencia Street community. These are the things I think about while wanting to keep Valencia Street local. I have no idea if I changed the young man’s thoughts on urban development overall or not, but I know I made my point. He signed the petition. And I hope to see him (and yourself) at the Makeout Room this Thursday to raise any concerns he may have … or perhaps just lend his voice to the cause.
The following is an open letter from Wayne Whelan, local business owner, to Pilar LaValley of the San Francisco Planning Department:
Dear Pilar,
It has come to my attention that American Apparel has expressed an interest in leasing a space on Valencia Street in the previous Valencia glass space. As the owner of Therapy I have had 4 different locations on Valencia street. Our first location opened on 05/29/94 at 545 Valencia St and has been open since then. Other locations have come and gone, when we first opened we sold only used goods, and were lucky if we grossed 20,000.00 in sales for the entire month. Our company now has 6 locations in various California communities, grossing millions in sales each year. Therapy has had a long and fruitful relationship with American Apparel, selling their clothing in our many locations. The owner of the proposed location also owns Muddy Waters and has been making my coffee practically daily for the last 15 years, I consider him a friend. Valencia Street remains of the few SF neighborhoods with a distinctive urban vibe, and many independent retailers have created a retail environment that many corporations would give their teeth to exploit.
While I am unaware as to whether you have solicited public opinion in this matter, I felt compelled to tell you that I oppose the introduction of national chain stores of any type into the Valencia St corridor (at least that’s what the real estate agents call it). Make an exception for American Apparel and the door will be open for others to follow, raising rents, lowering wages and benefits for workers and in general homogenizing a wonderful destination into a place that could be anywhere USA.
American Apparel has done some good things for folks making clothing in their factories in LA, (although I don’t much care for it’s controversial CEO insisting on photographing his employees in their underwear). The owner of this building is my friend, but the mission does not need corporate chain stores in order to be a viable destination. Seven years ago at the height of the “dot com” Valencia St was touted by many as being the center of the universe — without a single corporate entity. Please, let’s try and keep it that way. Should you ever be in the neighborhood trying out one of the dozens of outstanding restaurants, all independent, I might add, stop by and say hi.
Thanks for your time.
wayne whelan
