Comments on: Old-school hipsters vs. neo-Hipsters; community independent businesses vs. progressive chain store…it’s The Mission vs. American Apparel.

By: cRc

cRc — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:10:16 +0000

Final chapter… The problem with this whole affair is the the review process involved by Prop G is neither an educational nor a democratic process. There is no forum for the Planning Department, the Planning Commissioners or the Supervisors to educate the community about Prop G and the review process, and especially no forum in which they can dispel false notions or claims such as those made by Stephen Elliot. There is also no forum or mechanism by which a positive vision of and a realistic plan for a socially and economically healthy mixture of businesses can be evolved with merchants, the community and political leaders participating. Supervisor Brendan Dufty of The Castro is attempting to bring people together to accomplish something more like this. Finally, the hearing on American Apparel was held in the afternoon on a weekday, when many working people (including my favorite Mission Mission commenter whose comments on Stop American Apparel were censored) could not attend. The hearing is NOT a democratic process, with a vote for everyone in the community. Instead, a small, well-organized, vocal opposition carried the day; the issue became so toxic (to use a current term) that none of the Supervisors would vote FOR American Apparel; the opposition to the opposition was, aside from concerted posting on blogs, totally NOT organized.
There are further problems with Prop G: it does not protect smaller local businesses from bigger local businesses. Hayes Valley, with North Beach one of the two zones designated to have NO formula retail, was transformed with the Octavia Street upgrade to a high-rent zone. Several acquaintances with mine with small shops there were forced out by quadrupling rents, and replaced by shops like Timbuktu, Huf (my favorite shoe shop, actually) and La Boulange (which used to have the best Viennoisserie, but has definitely massed out to its market).
There really needs to be a more wide-ranging, inclusive, balanced, socio-culturally AND economically realistic solution to neighborhood preservation than Prop G.

By: cRc

cRc — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:09:30 +0000

Continued… Among the points that Stop American Apparel ended up emphasizing on its blog and in its official posters and letters to Supervisors and the Planning Department was the point that allowing American Apparel to enter The Mission would "establish a beachhead" for more formula retail. This point is just false, as a representation of how Proposition G, the law protecting neighborhood commerce, works. Actually, it is the opposite: there is no creation of precedent, as Prop G requires individual and separate review of each and every application for a conditional use permit by formula retailers in neighborhood commerce zones. In fact, Prop G requires planners and supervisors to consider how many existing formula retailers (of certain types) are already in the zone, the proportion of local businesses, and the remaining commercial space available. So, allowing American Apparel would actually have the opposite effect of the one Stop American Apparel claimed. To keep out The Gap, and other "evil" formula retailers, we could have allowed a "good", relatively very progressive formula retailer such as American Apparel, and then claimed against later applications that there already is a formula clothing retailer, and others aren't needed, esp. given limited commercial space available.
The other main point of the Stop American Apparel campaign was that American Apparel would compete against specialty clothing retailers – the local shops – on Valencia St. However, none of these shops offers the same types of item in the same price ranges as American Apparel. Instead, American Apparel could have had a "magnet" effect to draw shoppers to the area (which the local shops first started to do, in what was previously a fairly quiet neighborhood), who could then purchase complementary products and accessories at local shops. Given how these shops transformed the neighborhood from thrift-shops only to a more generally inviting shopping destination, opposition of these shops to American Apparel seemed somewhat ironic.
I think the reason that shopowners wrote letters against American Apparel – which were a big factor in the Supervisors' decision – is (a) that they did not have the benefit of a careful, thoughtful and realistic analysis of the impact of American Apparel on their markets, more importantly, (b) that they were misled by Stephen Elliot's false characterizations of American Apparel and how Prop G works (i.e. the claimed "beachhead effect"). I personally spoke with people at cafes and shops. Some were actually NOT opposed (but almost no one NOT opposed wrote letters!). Some said something like, "Yeah, we have to keep out formula retailers". But when I asked if they knew how Prop G worked, they said, "Uh, no." When I informed people about the review process, they generally dropped their opposition (even though they may have continued to express the opinion that Dov Charney is a sleazebag ).
There was also the claim that American Apparel would be "out of character" with the neighbhorhood. This is more a point that it might be out of character with the lifestyle and political views of a small subsegment. This is quite ironic to anyone who really knows The Mission, which already includes lots of formula retailers and large chains, especially on Mission St. (Ritmo Latino is a large chain, yo!), which have NOT harmed its character one bit, but have provided access to goods and services for everyone (local business do not cover ALL goods and services).

By: cRc

cRc — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:08:33 +0000

This issue ended a few weeks ago with the S.F. Board of Supervisors voting unanimously to reject American Apparel's application for a conditional use permit as a formula retailer to the Valencia Street neighborhood commerce zone.
Personally, as San Francisco (and former longtime Mission) resident who is strongly in favor of protecting neighborhood business (and who contributed to keeping Starbucks out of North Beach and Home Depot out of Bernal), although I would normally be opposed to any formula retail, I instead found myself very strongly opposed to the Stop American Apparel campaign.
This campaign was directed by Stephen Elliot, and presented itself as representing "the community" of The Mission, when its views, rhetoric and objectives actually represented a small, but organized and vocal, segment of a large and diverse community. I came to feel that this campaign had more to do with Stephen Elliot creating an issue with American Apparel to promote himself as a community activist and to further his political ambitions, which evidently include becoming a supervisor for The Mission District.
The first signs of trouble with the Stop American Apparel campaign were made known to me through the Mission Mission blog. Its blogmeister, Allan Hough, posted to ask whether Missionites felt that Stop American Apparel were indeed representing them. Commenters offered a variety of well-reasoned opinions, many deviating from Stop American Apparel's views, rhetoric and objectives. One of my favorite Mission Mission commenters also posted comments on the Stop American Apparel blog, only to have those comments censored by Stephen Elliot. Others, including myself, had their comments removed from that blog.
This censorship by Stop American Apparel went along with blatant misrepresentation of situations and issues, as well as expression of negative attitudes that I could only describe as a "hate campaign". Stephen Elliot characterized American Apparel as a "big box" company, which it is very much not: it does not have the economic model, the operations and policies, or the negative impacts of a big box company. He also, in posts on his blog which he later removed, characterized the key point of the issue as keeping "d-bags" out of The Mission. While Stop American Apparel "updated" the rhetoric on its blog and in its written materials to delete and replace points or approaches that had been effectively challenged on blogs like Mission Mission, it continued a kind of "hate campaign" on the street: signs carried and displayed at Artists' Television Access, next to the proposed American Apparel site, ironically presented such slogans as "Hipsters Out of The Mission" (a photo of a hipster kid painting such a sign earned him the name "Irony Boy" on other blogs). This kind of negative approach is definitely not what neighborhood commerce laws are about, and does not reflect the positive, inclusive vision of diverse community that is much more what San Francisco is all about.

By: Corporate Retail Hurting the Neighborhood? | Reinvent Retail | Simple, usable tools for independent retailers.

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:10:37 +0000

[...] article over at Elephant Journal about a controversy in San Franciso’s Mission district about a new American Apparel [...]