Marijuana

This Week’s Picks: November 20 – 26, 2013

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Gossip! Guns! Girl power!

THURSDAY 11/21

 

Shipwreck: The Hunger Games Edition

Erotic fanfiction writing gets competitive at Booksmith’s monthly literary event, Shipwreck! Six writers are given a popular literary work to destroy in whichever filthy ways their hearts desire, and the audience votes for its favorite. This month’s sacrificial prose is none other than Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic, YA novel The Hunger Games. Pregame for that midnight screening of Catching Fire with hilarious, smutty fiction and an open bar. All works will be read by Shakespearean Thespian in Residence, Sir Steven Westdahl, to ensure that voting is done fairly. The winning writer gets to pick the next ship to wreck and will defend his or her title. Will Katniss find time to choose between Peeta and Gale while she’s, you know, fighting a war? Will Peeta and Gale choose each other? Anything is possible! (Kirstie Haruta)

7pm, $10

Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

www.booksmith.com

THURSDAY 11/21

 

BiteLife

Thursdays provide a portal to unpredictable adventures for those who wander into the weekly NightLife series at Cal Academy. This week’s 21+ event, BiteLife, allows attendees to snack and sip while learning what the hell is happening while they snack and sip (internally). Get a backbone and learn about your guts from Gladstone Institute’s associate investigator Dr. Katie Pollard. Guests will also be able view their own microbes with Academy researcher James Angus Chandler and dance their butts off to music by ’80s-spinning soul-funk DJs, Sweater Funk, in the same night. Local, bite-sized, sustainable food from Earl’s Organic Produce, Whole Foods, and 4505 Meats will be available for the gourmands in the crowd. (Hillary Smith)

6pm, $12

California Academy of the Sciences

55 Music Concourse Dr., SF

(415) 379-8000

calacademy.org/events/nightlife

THURSDAY 11/21

 

“Behind the Scenes: Randy Thom on Sound Design”

Music is the ultimate mood-setter, not only in our iPod, laptop, and stereo-spotted lives, but in the lives we escape to on the big screen. Academy Award-winning sound designer Randy Thom, who’s worked on films ranging from Cast Away (2000) and The Incredibles (2004), discusses his use of sonic design to cut through the endless possibilities of noise, in order to set the stage, manipulate a mood, and craft a unique, cinematic story. He’ll take examples from Wild at Heart (1990) starring Nicolas Cage, where an overtly sensual sound design, along with Angelo Badalamenti’s entrancing score, transform the realism of a Southern fugitive romance into a lyric, tender escape. Stick around after the discussion to enjoy the film! (Kaylen Baker)

7pm, $9.50

Pacific Film Archive Theater

2575 Bancroft Way, Berk.

(510) 642-1412

bampfa.berkeley.edu

THURSDAY 11/21

 

Marijuana Deathsquads

Indie “super group” GAYNGS, dedicated to delivering a tongue-through-cheek tribute to ’80s easy-listening R&B and white-suited soul, represented “The Gaudy Side of Town.” This other project from Poliça’s Ryan Olson must reside in the darker part of, well, Minneapolis. Its latest LP, Oh My Sexy Lord, sounds like something that crawled out screaming from the same sort of despairing (yet somehow cozy) pit Crystal Castles call home. A cavern crowded by an excessive amount of drums and haphazard wires supporting any number of laptops, controllers, and a Nintendo. (Plus a couch for guests like Justin Vernon or Har Mar Superstar to crash.) (Ryan Prendiville)

With Poliça

8pm, $25

Fillmore

1850 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

FRIDAY 11/22

 

“Let Us Compare Chronologies”

Even if you are not doing aerial work — for which Joe Goode Annex’s two-story ceilings are ideally suited — the studio’s spaciousness makes it a welcome option compared to other local performance venues, which can too often hem the dancers in. Now with risers in place, even the sightlines have improved. Katharine Hawthorne, a fiercely intelligent thinker, debuted as choreographer at the Annex last February. She is now returning in a double bill with dancer-choreographer James Graham, still best known locally as a Gaga teacher. Calling their joint endeavor “Let Us Compare Chronologies,” since both works examine the concept of time, Graham’s quartet Guilty Survivor takes a look at what the 1980s represented in a gay man’s life; Hawthorne’s Timepiece delves into the connection of time to order and disorder. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/23, 8pm, $15–$30

Joe Goode Annex

401 Alabama St., SF

eventbrite.com/event/9028407209

FRIDAY 11/22

 

“3-Minute Reads”

Though “the Writer” almost always calls to mind a solitary figure — J. D. Salinger wrapped in a blanket by his Cornish hearth, Jane Austen bent and scribbling over a desk — most writers agree that having a community of peers creates unparalleled motivation and feedback. The Grotto creates such a space, while offering classes to new writers on topics like the short story and the memoir. Come cheer on more than 50 of these fledglings as they each read fresh, cheeky three-minute snippets from a variety of works-in-progress. (Baker)

6pm, free

Book Passage

1 Ferry Building, SF

(415) 835-1020

www.bookpassage.com

FRIDAY 11/22

 

“All Good Things Must Come to An End”

We hear it for every lost keepsake, graduation, and heartbreak. Usually, the words fall short of comforting and land somewhere closer to stale. But SOMArts is breathing new life into the phrase with “All Good Things…,” an ephemeral art exhibition featuring such pieces as a caramelized sugar installation, a sand mandala, and a massive camera obscura throughout the gallery that choreographs the sun’s changing light. The opening reception will glorify transience with edible art, chess with melting pieces, and a performance piece in which the audience shatters dishes. The expression “once in a lifetime” has never been truer; the only record of the exhibit will be audience impressions dictated to cassette recorders. (Janina Glasov)

Through Dec. 21

6-9pm, free

SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

(415) 863-1414

somarts.org/allgoodthings

SATURDAY 11/23

 

9 to 5

Pour yourself a cup of ambition and head to the Castro for Peaches Christ’s first tribute to 9 to 5, the 1980 comedy about three office mates (Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda) battling their sexist pig of a boss (Dabney Coleman). The movie has it all (gossip! guns! girl power!), so the stage show that accompanies the screening, Work!, should be one to remember, especially with Pandora Boxx (of RuPaul’s Drag Race), Heklina, and Peaches filling the leads — three among few performers with hair bigger than Parton’s. (Cheryl Eddy)

8pm, $25-55

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

SATURDAY 11/23

 

Magic Makers Queer Art & Crafts Fair

Love arts and crafts? Tired of running up against heteronormativity and cultural appropriation in art spaces and craft fairs? Then join Magic Makers for a stunning array of arts and crafts in a safe, queer-friendly space. From the zines of womyn, trans*, genderqueer, API collective Moonroot, to the herbal remedies of Shooting Star Botanicals, to the dazzling accessories of burlesque beauty the Lady Miss Vagina Jenkins, Magic Makers will feature some of the Bay’s craftiest queer artists. This fair is all about storytellers, healers, and dreamers, so come on out and support these friendly, socially aware creators, and get inspired to create something of your own. (Haruta)

1pm, free

Temescal Art Center

511 48th St, Oakl.

www.themagicmakers.wordpress.com

SATURDAY 11/23

 

The Entrance Band

If the sometimes sing-song lyrics of this recent Mazzy Star opener feel superfluous (the latest maudlin goth single “Spider” off new album Face the Sun or earlier jam “Still Be There” being notable exceptions) it’s to the credit of the instrumentals. Singer Guy Blakeslee’s guitar, hung upside-down and strung in a manner that perhaps only he understands, singularly emits distinctive, appropriately captivating sounds. When given space to just play, as is the case on the latter half of “Fine Flow,” Blakeslee exhibits exactly that, speeding off towards psych horizons and looping back on himself effortlessly. With drummer Derek James and bassist Paz Lenchantin fitting so comfortably in that groove with him, words often can’t help but break the spell. (Prendiville)

With Raw Geronimo

9pm, $12-15

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

MONDAY 11/25

 

PAWS

In its purest form, pop music is the sound of growing up. It doesn’t require a theory for what matters; if it feels significant, it must be. On Cokefloat!, the debut from Glasgow’s PAWS, the lessons come quickly but at cost. Opening with “Catherine 1956,” Philip Taylor regards the loss of his mother and her lasting words, “Toughen up because/Life goes on/You can’t live your life in fear.” If the ferocious fun trio fearlessly cribs its riffs from decades old alternative rock — Dinosaur Jr., the Breeders, Violent Femmes — at least it does that old guard justice. I’d like to say it sounds dated, but I must not have outgrown this yet. Does anyone? (Prendiville)

With Surf Club, Tiaras

8pm, $10

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

TUESDAY 11/26

 

The Moth: “Temptation”

Temptation is otherwise known (at least according to the dictionary) as “the action of tempting or fact of being tempted, especially to evil; enticement, allurement, attraction.” While the desire to do and obtain things is universally shared, this definition can’t begin to explain why humans find evil so attractive, nor why our vices come to us in such personal, wrapped-and-beribboned shapes and sizes. Audience members at this round of the Moth StorySLAM should come with a their own tale of temptation in mind, because names will be pulled from a bag throughout the night, giving 10 people the chance to tell wicked, funny, failed, or won stories of allure for five minutes onstage. Each storyteller gets a score, and the winner gets a chance to perform in the GrandSLAM. (Baker)

6pm, $8

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 779-6757

moth.org/events

 

Best of the Bay 2013: BEST FRESH FLOWERS

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All over the news last year: Medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and other cities were being shut down by a spasm of overzealous and anachronistic enforcement by the federal government (see “Why?” 8/14/12). But a wave of young clubs were undaunted by the headlines. Indeed, many went through the entirely navigable local approval process for cannabis clubs and threw open their doors, come what may from Kamala Harris, Eric Holder, and the rest of the “drug warriors.” Among the best of the bunch? Bloom Room, an elegant establishment just a stone’s throw from hoity-toity Mint Plaza and the Chronicle Building in the heart of downtown. “Where medicine blooms wellness follows” is its somewhat logically fuzzy yet totally cromulent motto. Bloom Rooms got great weed — strains like Grape Romulan (I), Girl Scout Cookies, Chem Dawg, Pink Lemonade, and a special Bloom Blend — at decent prices, weighed out by super-nice and knowledgeable employees, in a classy, exposed brick interior. Here’s hoping Bloom’s given enough room to put down some roots.

471 Jessie, SF. (415) 543-7666, www.bloomroomsf.com

Best of the Bay 2013 Editors Picks: Shopping

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SHOPPING

EDITORS PICKS

Editors picks are chosen by Guardian editors for special recognition for brightening the Bay Area experience.


BEST PLACE TO PARK YOUR CARD

Get that paper, paper, paper — printed. Holed up in a cozy garage with a cute dog and a hunky Vandercock proof press (a rare specimen last produced in the 1960s), the letterpress-loving ladies of Western Editions create and design paper goods for all occasions and situations, from badass business cards with handmade charm to colorful and direct wedding invites that may just get your flaky San Franciscan friends to actually attend the soirée. “Letterpress is magic,” is the motto of Western Addition residents Taylor Reid and Erin Fong, two friends turned business partners who are down to customize and open to suggestions, meaning you can make all the cute shit your ambitious heart desires, or purchase some one else’s great idea from their online store. Oh, hey, and they offer supercool DIY workshops, too — just in time for the holidays.

555 Rose, SF. www.westerneditions.com


BEST BE-SPOKED FASHION

We’re constantly on the hunt for the perfect outfit that will make it through our daily transition from work serf to night owl. Reversible scarves, tear-away skirts, all black outfits — those work OK. But what about then shoes? What pair of hoofers can glide us from the workbound bike lane to the underground dance floor? Welp, a local company has the solution to our woes: DZR Shoes, an SF-based (though they manufacture overseas) outfit that creates sneakers that can clip to all manners of pedal types, but look fly as all getout. Whether you go for high or low top, fully vegan design or whole grain leather, knee-high lace-up or slip-in, chances are you can find the kicks to complete your Lycra-free lane look in style. Our current favorite? The sleek, all-black Minna, designed by artist-DJ Jeremiah Bal.

www.dzrshoes.com

 

BEST FLORAL HUNTRESS

Her eyes scanning the abandoned lots and hillsides of the Stinson area and East Bay, Louesa Roebuck of Louesa Roebuck Flora isn’t afraid to snoop, sneak, or hustle in the name of foraging for flowers. Her mission: fetch that wild flora and arrange it in ways that exemplify the plant’s natural majesty. Gleaning armloads of budding branches, floppy magnolias, brilliant poppies, sweet mallow, bright berries, and sharp citrus from both public and secret locations, Louesa finds beauty in imperfection, a sublime bouquet in nature’s fantastic mistakes. She lets the blooms and leaves curl, crawl, and droop as they will, showcasing the fascinating juxtaposition between life and slow, dreamy decay. Visit her tiny Hayes Valley shop to see the day’s treasures and meet some of the gorgeous plants living right beside you.

597 Hayes, SF. (415) 686-5482, www.louesaroebuck.com


BEST ONE-STOP SCOTCH SHOP

Like a sweater for your insides, the names warm your gray matter: Broichladdich, Glayva, Mackillop’s, Benriach, Balvenie, Glenmorangie. Standing in the sweetly crammed back bottle room of downtown’s Whisky Shop can be a meditative experience for scotch lovers — the selection of malts and blends vies for the city’s best, with employees as helpful as their kilts are fetching. And should the Whisky Shop staff’s sartorial motif inspire, the front portion of the store is stocked with a rainbow of tartan, wool, and waxed fabric wardrobe. Score kilts and genuine, betasseled fur sporrans you’ll use to stash your new perfectly heart-shaped silver flask. And possibly a novelty gift or two — the Whisky Shop is also flush with crest-adorned coasters, canned haggis, and artisan lotions from the United Kingdom.

360 Sutter, SF. (415) 989-1030, www.whiskeyshopusa.com

 

BEST COMMUNITY BOARDS

While there can be no debate that surf shops, in general, are selling a lifestyle, few are hawking a way of living as healthy as Mill Valley’s beloved Proof Lab. Need proof? The nine-year-old store (whose owners used reclaimed and reused materials wherever possible in its construction) stocks the best in sustainable men’s and women’s clothing, surfboard brands, and skateboard fixins, of course. But it also hosts a passel of community-minded offerings: sustainability workshops, toddler art classes, a native plant nursery, a biodiesel fuel station. On the lot next door you’ll find a teaching garden co-founded by Proof where one can take the occasional canning seminar, and buy fresh local produce. Plus: a new Equator coffee bar, to keep you up for those waves.

244 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley. (415) 380-8900, www.prooflab.com

 

BEST CLAWS CARTEL

We bow down to the business acumen and sharp eye for trends possessed by Floss Gloss duo Aretha Sack and Janine Lee. These two California College of the Arts grads eschewed inward-looking artistic exploration, instead embarking on a mission to paint the world with the sizzling neons and kick-ass, vintage-inspired shades that haunt their minds eye. Their canvas? The fingernails of the Bay Area’s young, hip, and gifted. How did they take their line of animal cruelty-free nail polishes from late-night study sessions to indie and corporate retailers around the globe? (All while remaining 100 percent free of DBPs, formaldehyde, and other harmful chemicals — these colors may scream “heavy metal,” but contain none.) Let us count the ways: perfect nacho cheese orange and bikini coral lacquers; irresistibly chic tones like Party Bruise, Dimepiece, Black Holy, Faded, Pony, and Blood, Suede, and Tears; endless pop-up nail salons, hard work … and the knowledge that you can do anything when you’ve got a perfect 10 to point the way.

www.flossgloss.com

 

BEST BLADE RUNNER

It is a satisfying, luxurious — if fundamental — satisfaction, settling in to make dinner with a hiss-sharp passel of well-honed knives. Fans of cutting-edge pleasures will want to slip into Nob Hill’s Town Cutler, a well-hewn, immaculately organized shop of blades both wildly fabulous (a $1,050 Wilburn Forge Japanese chef knife, its silver nickel sharp marbled and lovely) and craftily utilitarian (a $100 handleless Takeda Kogotana meant for woodworking). Owner Galen Garretson will sell you these, sharpen the utensils you already own, teach you to work your own knives in a sharpening tutorial or informative class, and even help you get a handle on blunter culinary objects — the back of Town Cutlery is an elegantly hung array of those most-unsharp kitchen friends: spoons.

1005 Bush, SF. (415) 359-1519, www.towncutler.com

 

BEST BOOKS FOR THE BROKE

These are the facts: Reading is cool, books are rad, free books are even radder, and the best combo of all of these is the Bay Area Free Book Exchange. At any given moment, the space — run cooperatively by a cadre of indie booksellers and printed-page junkies — houses some 10,000 books, all free for the taking. (“It’s like an ever-changing treasure hunt among thousands of books,” its website declares, and we have to agree.) Since opening in May 2009, the Exchange has given away over 350,000 books during its weekend hours, with an ultimate goal of handing out a million, and beyond! Since it survives on donations, consider adding your own previously-read tomes to the stacks proudly bearing this stamp: “Not for Resale, This is a Free Book.”

10520 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 705-1200, www.bayareafreebookexchange.com

 

BEST ROUNDABOUT OF FOUND GEMS

A compellingly curated combination of artwork by some of San Francisco’s eye-catching countercultural artists — with noteworthy post-industrial tinge courtesy of the Burning Man diaspora — and intriguing flea market finds by diligent shoppers with an eye for the urban aesthetic, Carousel Consignment SF is an oasis of great pre-found finds. This welcoming and decidedly funky Mission whirl, set in motion by co-owners Kelley Wehman and Illy McMahan (who bonded over their passion for all things circus and vintage), can turn a quick fly-by into an afternoon-long exploration. Furniture, toys, lighting, textiles … Its quirky assemblage of wares preserves its surroundings’ penchant for the wacky and weird.

2391 Mission, SF. (415) 821-9848, www.carouselsf.com

 

BEST SOLO STARTUPS

You know how it goes: surfing the www.aves of one’s sleek laptop, a stray image distracts. Suddenly, you’re no longer typing that return email — your mind has fixed on a different kind of click entirely. For you, sweets, SoMa brand Crave‘s line of tech-happy sex toys. Designed and produced by Ti Chang and Michael Topolovac, and assembled in the land of SF startup, each of the company’s gorgeous, whisper-quiet specimens have all the design and functionality of your favorite Apple toy. Our favorite is the Duet, a vibe with a double-pronged, silicone clitoral approach available in gold plating and with the option of eight or 16 GB of data storage thanks to a USB charging battery. That’s right: there is a USB port up in this vibrator. Adventurous souls can wear their pleasure out in public: Crave’s “Droplet” lariat necklace doubles as discreet nipple vibrators.

www.lovecrave.com


BEST HORROR HOUND DECOR

To some, a house full of Alex Pardee visual art would reap naught but disturbed sleep and missed meals. A living dream catcher made of exposed sinew and dripping eyeballs dangling from tendons, ready to snatch a soul; a roaring “Sharkasus” with razor teeth, four legs, and wings; an endless parade of your favorite horror icons rendered somehow even more terrifying by his spindly, precise strokes. But given the fact there are now two Bay Area shops stocked primarily with his prints, originals, and tees — in addition to the unnerving yet painterly work of other artists like Dave Correia — plenty of us are digging it. While shopping for the creep-craver in your life, you’ll do no better than the Oakland or Lower Haight location of Zero Friends, which has become a ground zero of sorts for the street art marketing scene.

419 Haight, SF. (415) 418-9912; 489A 25th St., Oakl. (510) 735-9405 (open first Fridays of the month or by appointment only); www.zerofriends.com

 

BEST REPAIR GRAND CENTRAL

Should you need a custom cabinet, a staircase rehab, perhaps a new cupola on your clock tower, you can turn to Clipper Construction’s Mathieu Palmer. But 501 Waller, the storefront Palmer owned and used as storage space — as he told local blog Haighteration — wasn’t the best use of a neighborhood-facing corner shop. Enter Palmer’s friend Dan Daniel, who created Clipper Repair from this clutter, a friendly place for fixing up, designing, or refurbishing anything you could imagine: lamps, cabinets, antique furniture, electrical things. The interior is a gorgeously organized wonderland of screws, nails, tools, gears, and random curiosities. And then! Garret Peters turned Clipper’s back storage room into a bike shop called Wiggle Bikes, conveniently located off the Wiggle, our crosstown thoroughfare for the two-wheeled. Could there be a more useful stop-off for lovers of sustainable transportation and reuse than the Clipper Repair-Wiggle Bikes complex?

501 Waller, SF. (415) 621-4733, www.clipper-construction.com

 

BEST GIVING FACE, FLAWLESSLY

You could find no better brand rep than Swagger Cosmetics‘ Blake Karamazov. The tiny club kid (who came to us a few years ago fresh from the female drag-friendly land of Seattle) rarely leaves the house without her face immaculately, fantastically done — think ruby red 4mm glitter lips, sherbet orange eyebrows, or an exaggerated, smoky cat eye. The woman lives for everyday drag queen. But as a vegan, Karamazov bridled at many heavily pigmented makeup lines. Lucky us, because the Sanrio-obsessed entrepreneur started designing her own one-woman line of glitters, lipsticks, eye shadows — and most recently, fake eyelashes — manufactured 100 percent sans animal cruelty. Having recently made up one of her genderbending idols James St. James, there’s no question this babe’s got swag. Check her wares online, and don’t miss her wildly popular, glam inspiring Instagram game.

www.swaggercosmetics.com


BEST WAY TO THROW SHADE, PART I

You don’t care if they work from home or not — the neighbors are taking too much pleasure from your lax approach to towels on the post-shower strut from the bathroom, and you sense an overeager, extra pair of peepers when you and your sweet are snuggled up watching Jessica Lange chew the scenery on American Horror Story: Coven. Thank goodness for Christine and Jeff Vidall, whose Art Shade Shop has been keeping neighborly boundaries firm in a densely-packed city since 1934. Wood slats, pleated blinds, sunbrellas, fabric coverings — this Castro couple has it all, perfect for the moment you need more privacy than those gorgeous bay windows will afford on their own. The basement shop (nook, really) also offers bead and reel clutch mechanisms, bottom-up lock pulleys, and Hauser roller shades. If you don’t know what any of that is, they’ll gladly install it all for you anyway.

698 14th St., SF. (415) 431-5074, www.artshadeshop.com

 

BEST WAY TO THROW SHADE, PART II

And then there are times when you just need a retreat from harsh illumination. Perhaps the fluorescent bars at the office seared your retinas too deeply today, or maybe you wish to give your date a softly lit, haloed-in-shadow version of ever-romantical you. These are the moments in which you’ll be grateful for Lamp Shades SF and its colorfully appointed showroom, ready to shield you from the ever-burning light. A leopard topper for that candlestick fixture? Modern puce shades for the chandelier in the foyer? A pair of matching onyx horse head bedside numbers? You will find them all here. Bring the base or bulb for which you need a topper, ring the doorbell to be allowed entrance, and let the decidedly unshady staff help you select the level of lighting best suited for your look.

199 Potrero, SF. (415) 431-6720

 

BEST RIFFS KEPT REAL

If you’re looking for a vintage instrument with a personal touch, Panhandle Guitar hits all the right chords. Rock fiends will swoon for the intimate, nicely overstuffed shop’s collection of prime and shiny vintage guitars, basses, amps, and effects. Panhandle buys old instruments too — on consignment, or trade-in — and offers on-site repairs. Owner Robert Williams is known for his encyclopedic knowledge, and there’s a laid-back and welcoming vibe we dig, charmed by store windows cluttered with neon signs and a child mannequin in an oversized Panhandle Guitar T-shirt. Guitar Center this is not; the stated store hours seem more like vague suggestions of when it might be open, and Mondays are simply listed as “some times” open with a smiley face. This kind of store is sadly uncommon these days — a unique, owner-run vendor of rare instrumental goods, tuned into the needs of fellow artists.

1221 Fell, SF. (415) 552-1302, www.panhandleguitarsf.com

 

BEST RING-A-DING STYLE

When Cable Car Clothiers — venerable haberdasher to dashing gents since 1946 — announced it was vacating its Sansome and Bush location in 2012, our hearts sank. Was this incredible emporium of all things Mad Men-Rat Pack-Nautical Chic-Dressy Preppy about to vanish, like so many other San Francisco institutions? Where, oh where, would we get our crushable Trilby fedoras, handsomely polka-dotted navy blue ascots, and elaborate cherry-handled horsehair brush sets? Never fear: the relocation a few blocks away signaled a snazzy revamp. Jonathan Levin, grandson of original Clothier Charles Pivnick, had returned to the family business, determined to pump some classy 21st Century zazz into the joint. The large, handsome new showroom retains all the charm of the former space — but decks it out in voluminous racks and shelves of exquisite menswear treasures. Another reason to spend your entire afternoon here: the in-store barbershop with master barber Nicky and associates providing hot lather and straight razor shaves, hot toweling, scissor hair cuts, and more. You want full-service swank? This is the place, my man.

110 Sutter, SF. (415) 397-4740, www.cablecarclothiers.com


BEST DREAMY DRESSMAKER

Wiggle your bike down to this sweet little corner shop near Duboce Park for lessons in fine and lovely things. Aline’s Closet is the three-year-old queendom of a one Aline Dazogbo, a seamstress whose French-inflected takes on dresses, skirts, and blouses may just lead you to the customized wardrobe item of your dream. Dazogbo designs and creates nearly everything in the shop: yoga pants, handbags, column skirt-tube top combos, and more. Though many items are ready-to-wear, a rack along one wall of the sunny store showcases the garments she can tailor-make just for you: a lace-paneled velvet slip, a clingy, cap-sleeved onesie. Should her sweet, sassy patterns stray even one iota from your fantasy outfit, don’t fret: Dazogbo loves to help customers concoct one-of-a-kind wearables based out of nothing more than their own visions.

101 Pierce, SF. (415) 312-3468, www.alinescloset.com

 

BEST CULINARY GEPETTO

Powerful chrome and polished enamel parts, operated by hand, executing a series of swift cuts and swooping motions. Classic design masterfully crafted, all building to — gasp! — the perfect slice of salami. Welcome to the world of Emilio Mitidieri, the man who brings the Bay Area’s venerable Emiliomiti “culinary toys” to life. Though his company is playfully named, Mitidieri’s creations mean business — wood fire and gas brick ovens that yield perfectly cooked pizza pies, pasta machines that extrude dreamy strands of fettuccini, and specimens like the Slicer Mito 300, an elegantly crafted meat slicer that mimics the classic designs of the deli of yesteryear. Mitidieri has been supplying restaurants and dedicated chefs with the tools needed for success for decades now, so chances are you’ve already sampled some of his playful perfection topped with marinara or nestled in a hoagie roll.

www.emiliomiti.com

 

BEST HAVEN FOR HEARTS OF GLASS

Bolivian-born David Forte’s SoMa workshop has one mission: to light up your life, and colorfully at that. Opened in 1971, Forte’s San Francisco Stained Glass Works is the place to go for those who would have blooming lilies twinkling above a front door, or an Art Deco Emerald City to enliven the upper strata of one’s workspace. The shop turns out devotional works for pane-minded churches and synagogues and extravagantly lovely flatware sets. Others flock to learn the craft themselves. A course on glass fusing and a stained glass 101 are both offered by Forte’s staff, not to mention monthly space rentals for artists in need of a communal glass grinder, firing kiln, and place to indulge a penchant for transcendent translucents.

1246 Howard, SF. (415) 626-3592, www.sfsgw.com

 

BEST SF TO A TEE

Local artist Amos Goldbaum hand-draws and hand-prints some of the most recognizable, SF-centric t-shirts (and hoodies, tanks, and baby onesies) available on the streets — literally, on the streets, since he also hand-sells his wares from wire racks on Valencia, near the Ferry Building, at street fairs like the recent Castro Street Fair, and other open-air spots. Goldbaum’s complete repertoire goes far beyond the familiar tourist-friendly landscapes he’s known for: his web portfolio is packed with psychological, fantastical illustrated scenes you’d spot immediately in a gallery — but probably never witness out a Muni window. When it comes to uniquely Bay gifts, though, you won’t want to miss his quirky, amazingly detailed and vibrant line-drawing takes on local landmarks like Dolores Park, with old-school playground intact, and Bernal Hill — or his illo of the old-timey Sutro Baths, complete with Cliff House aflame in the background.

www.amosgoldbaum.com

 

BEST JUNK BONDS

Inside the massive American Steel building, a relic of Oakland’s industrial past repurposed and managed mostly for the Burning Man art world, there’s a beautifully intricate two-story Western saloon made from recycled materials, originally built as the Dustfish Bordello for Black Rock City in 2009. In the intervening years, the structure has matured into what is now known as American Steel’s Oaktown Hall, an art gallery and event space that became a hub this year for a variety of ventures within what its organizers call the salvage and reuse arts. Skate ramps! Haitian art tours! Crazy, old-timey auctions! The hall is a gathering place and focal point for those who would find creative reuses for so-called junk, and build relationships among West Oakland’s diverse communities.

1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakl. (415) 794-1827, www.oaktownhall.com

 

BEST TIP-TOP SPIFF UP

It has been remarked that West Portal is quite the happy village in the middle of this teeming city. We concur. Tucked into the side of a hill topped by a Twin Peak, slung happily along a leafy central promenade, the neighborhood is not the worst model for Main Street, USA. Tip and Top Vacuum & Shoe Service, particularly seen in this light, is an all-American gem. Bring in your dirt sucker for a fix-me-up and the capable staff will get it back to dirt bunny-busting in two shakes of a dusty rug. And like any good member of a small community, Tip and Top is a multitasker, as evident from the boots in the window. The shop also repairs shoes, and will even custom-cobble you a boot or slipper. To recap: Tip and Top fixes vacuums and shoes, it’s cute as a button, and you kind of need to check it out.

173 W Portal, SF. (415) 664-9320

 

BEST FRESH FLOWERS

All over the news last year: Medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and other cities were being shut down by a spasm of overzealous and anachronistic enforcement by the federal government (see “Why?” 8/14/12). But a wave of young clubs were undaunted by the headlines. Indeed, many went through the entirely navigable local approval process for cannabis clubs and threw open their doors, come what may from Kamala Harris, Eric Holder, and the rest of the “drug warriors.” Among the best of the bunch? Bloom Room, an elegant establishment just a stone’s throw from hoity-toity Mint Plaza and the Chronicle Building in the heart of downtown. “Where medicine blooms wellness follows” is its somewhat logically fuzzy yet totally cromulent motto. Bloom Rooms got great weed — strains like Grape Romulan (I), Girl Scout Cookies, Chem Dawg, Pink Lemonade, and a special Bloom Blend — at decent prices, weighed out by super-nice and knowledgeable employees, in a classy, exposed brick interior. Here’s hoping Bloom’s given enough room to put down some roots.

471 Jessie, SF. (415) 543-7666, www.bloomroomsf.com

 

BEST 78S OFF HAIGHT

“I’ve had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book,” SF literary legend Kenneth Rexroth once supposedly said. Many share his sentiment when it comes to music — especially as our city rapidly empties itself of neighborhood record stores (and book stores, too, for that matter). Rexroth himself used to live above Jack’s Record Cellar, one of our longest-operating vinyl concerns — since 1951! — and also one of the most poetic spots in the city. Packed with the rarest of 33s, 45s, and, miraculously, stacks of so-desirable-we-can’t-stand-it 78s, Jack’s has all the jazz you want — plus soul, opera, country, doo-wop, standards, and classic pop. Memorabilia papers the walls, and piles of records spill out onto the aisles. Like many spots in the area, it’s more of a relaxed hangout than a capitalist venture. Conversation is prized over cash receipts. Open hours are spare and unpredictable. Saturday afternoons are a good bet, proprietor Wade Wright might be there to let you in. Unlike Rexroth, he values the love over the sale.

254 Scott, (415) 431-3047

 

BEST READING REVIVAL

After a 25-year stint on 16th Street in the now-teeming Valencia Corridor, and years of rumors of impending closure, a steep rent increase nearly caused literary, cultural, and artistic hub Adobe Books to shut its doors for good. But supporters launched a fundraising campaign using crowd-funding platform Indiegogo and succeeded in raising $60,000, enough to secure a new home on 24th Street — which, along with the re-situated Modern Times Bookstore, has become somewhat of a haven for gentrification-fleeing libraries. “Adobe has been such an important part of our lives as artists, writers, book lovers, and Mission dwellers,” the bookstore and gallery’s boosters wrote, in what turned out to be a wildly successful pitch. “We couldn’t see the Mission without it.”

3130 24th St, SF. (415) 864-3936, www.adobebackroomgallery.com

 

SFPD targets bikes before hearing on its anti-cyclist bias

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As it prepares for this Thursday’s Board of Supervisors hearing examining allegations that its officers are biased against bicyclists, the San Francisco Police Department has quietly started enforcement stings focused on cyclists riding the Wiggle, one of the city’s most popular and heavily traveled bike routes.

I was among a series of cyclists stopped by one of two motorcycle cops on Saturday night as they stood on Waller Street waiting for cyclists to make that left turn off of Steiner, the first in a series of five turns known as the Wiggle, a key bike route connecting the east and west sides of town.

The sting operation — a term that Officer R. Scott, who stopped me, denied, although that’s clearly what it was — was like shooting fish in a barrel for these guys, given that thousands of cyclists a day roll through the stop signs on the Wiggle on their way to work, school, or errands.

Since being pulled over, I’ve heard this was part of several recent enforcement actions targeting cyclists on the Wiggle, supposedly driven by neighborhood complaints. Although Scott took down my driver’s license information, entered my information into the system, and issued me a citation — lecturing me along the way, and getting an earful from me in response — he waited to the end to tell me it was only a warning (actually, it was his partner who said that he should give me a ticket rather than a warning because of how I was expressing myself, but Scott said it was too late).

I’ve asked the SFPD a series of questions about the reasons for and goals of this stepped-up enforcement against cyclists, as well as about the timing, stats, and other information. I’ll update this post if and when I get a response.

For conservative law-and-order types, it probably doesn’t seem like there’s much to discuss here. Cyclists run stop signs, that’s against the law, end of story. But if San Francisco is going to continue to encourage people to ride bikes — with all the societal benefits that brings — it needs to take a more realistic and progressive approach to this issue.   

The California Vehicle Code Section 22450(a), which I was accused of violating, doesn’t distinguish between cars and bikes when it states, “The driver of any vehicle approaching a stop sign at the entrance to, or within, an intersection shall stop at a limit line, if marked, otherwise before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection.”

Unlike the traffic laws in Idaho, which do have different standards for bikes and cars and where my approach of yielding but not stopping would have been legal, California has traffic laws that are hopelessly mired in another age, before global warming, air pollution, traffic gridlock, skyrocketing automobile fatalities, and other factors caused society to rediscover and embrace bikes as a beneficial mode of everyday transportation.

And when state or federal laws have lagged behind public opinion and behaviors, San Francisco has often been at the forefront of radical reform, as we have done on immigration, marijuana, civil liberties, rent control, marriage equality, and other issues where we have refused to go along with an unjust or unrealistic status quo.

How we get around, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect for the reasonable choices that we make, belongs on that list. The number of cyclists on the streets of San Francisco has surged in recent years, and it’s the official policy of the city to favor that mode over the automobile and to work toward the goal of having 20 percent of all trips be by bicycle by the year 2020.

That probably won’t happen without many more bike lanes — and it definitely won’t happen if bicyclists are expected to stop at every stop sign. Momentum matters on bikes and they become a far less appealing mode of transportation if we’re forced to come to a complete stop at every intersection, an unrealistic approach that impedes the smooth flow of not just cyclists, but motorists, Muni, and pedestrians as well.

Sup. Jane Kim called the hearing on how the SFPD handles cyclists — which is scheduled for this Thurday at 10am before the board’s Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee — after the Guardian helped expose some truly appalling anti-cyclist bias by the SFPD.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum said that cyclists will call for better training and investigations of traffic collisions involving bikes, as well as a shift in how the SFPD polices the streets. She said her message will be, “Focus limited traffic enforcement resources on known dangerous intersections and known dangerous behaviors.”

And she said the bicyclists on the Wiggle just don’t meet those criteria. “When you look at the data on the Wiggle, it’s not a high collision area,” Shahum said, confirming reports that the SFPD has done bicycle stings on the Wiggle on at least two days in the last week.

Shahum acknowledges that there are sometimes conflicts and that bicyclists aren’t angels, noting that the SFBC has recently done events on the Wiggle encouraging bicyclists to ride carefully and yield to pedestrians and motorists when they have the right-of-way.

But she that Police Chief Greg Suhr has repeatedly called for each police district to “focus on five,” using traffic data to target the five most dangerous intersections in each district. As she said, “We’re asking the police to live up to have they’ve said, over and over.”

As for changing state law to adopt Idaho’s bike standards, Shahum said that the difficult, multi-year effort just to get a weak bike buffer law recently signed into law shows that’s probably not realistic. But here in San Francisco, there’s much more we can do to encourage safer cycling and road sharing.

Industrial hemp legalized in California

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After being stuck in legislative limbo for 14 years, industrial hemp will soon be a legally sanctioned agricultural crop in the state of California.

The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act (SB 566) was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Sept. 25, ending years of deliberation dating back to 1999, a process that included multiple gubernatorial vetoes. The freshly signed law will allow approved California residents to grow hemp for industrial purposes by reclassifying the once-felonious plant as a “fiber or oilseed crop.”

SB 566, a bill championed since 2005 by Sen. Mark Leno (D-SF), defines industrial hemp as the “nonpsychoactive types of the plant Cannabis saliva L. and the seed produced therefrom, having no more than 3/10 of 1 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contained in the dried flowering tops.”

In simpler terms: It doesn’t protect marijuana, but rather marijuana’s less mind-bending cousin, which is far more useful as a raw industrial material.

“We are very pleased to have the signature,” Sen. Leno told the Guardian. “It’s been a 10-year effort to get here. It’s a job still, but [the passing of SB 566] will help sustain family farms in California for the future and likely create more job opportunities. Hemp is a $500 million a year industry in California, and it’s growing at 10 percent annually.”

California now follows in the footsteps of nine other states and 30 other countries that have reclassified the innocuous plant as a crop with agricultural and commercial value. And it is quite valuable.

“This is a miracle plant that has served the planet Earth well for, literally, millennia, and that we currently legally manufacture and sell thousands of hemp products including food, clothing, shelter, paper, fuel, all biodegradable products,” said Leno. “It’s renewable every 90 days, grows without herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, and needs less water than corn. It is the definition of sustainability.”

But the reputation of hemp hasn’t always had champions like Leno. Since the initial proposal of Assembly House Resolution 32 back in 1999, the legislation has been vetoed four times by three different governors. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited a “false sense of security” he feared would be cultivated among the growers of the crop, due to its illegality at a federal level.

Gov. Brown had previously shot down the proposed legislation in 2011, citing a gap in state and federal law as the reason. However, he did remark in his veto message at the time that “it is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it.”

And it would seem that Brown’s recognition of hemp’s merits finally outweighed his concern over the potential for California growers to face federal prosecution, which is a major relief for the architects of SB 566. Now Californians can stop relying on imported hemp from Mexico and Canada (among other places) and start legally manufacturing their own.

“We currently manufacture literally thousands of [hemp] products — legally — and sell them,” said Leno. “This is why this issue has been so nonsensical.”

The “nonsensical” issue has had deep roots, given hemp’s historically ambiguous federal standing. As Brown’s 2011 veto message noted, “federal law clearly establishes that all cannabis plants, including industrial hemp, are marijuana, which is a federally regulated controlled substance.”

But that isn’t a universally held assertion. Back in 1970, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 “explicitly excludes nonpsychoactive hemp from the definition of marijuana,” a decision that the federal government never appealed. It’s a decision that Leno agrees with.

“We’ve always believed that there is no federal preemption, because we believe that that court case ruled that Congress had knowingly exempted industrial hemp from the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 –because it’s not a drug,” said Leno.

Now the state of California can do what more than 30 countries (including Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, and China) and nine states are already doing: cultivating and processing a plant that many have touted as the “miracle plant.”

Now that SB 566 has passed, however, the looming question still remains as to how the federal government will respond. But Leno is confident that it will respect the will of California lawmakers.

“I have great confidence in a recent statement by Attorney General Eric Holder,” said Leno. “He’s said that if a state puts into place a legal allowance and regulatory scheme, that the federal government would not interfere with marijuana. Now, we need clarification between hemp and marijuana, but there’s no sensical way that that could be interpreted that hemp is excluded, given that hemp’s not a drug.”

Either way, hemp is on the horizon here in California.

Industrial hemp legalized in California

132

After being stuck in legislative limbo for 14 years, industrial hemp will soon be a legally sanctioned agricultural crop in the state of California.

The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act (SB 566) was signed into law on Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown, after years of deliberation dating back to 1999, a process that included multiple gubernatorial vetoes. The freshly signed law will allow approved California residents to grow hemp for industrial purposes by reclassifying the once-felonious plant as a “fiber or oilseed crop.”

SB 566, a bill championed since 2005 by Sen. Mark Leno (D), defines industrial hemp as the “nonpsychoactive types of the plant Cannabis saliva L. and the seed produced therefrom, having no more than 3/10 of 1 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) contained in the dried flowering tops.” 

In simpler terms: It doesn’t protect marijuana, but rather marijuana’s less mind-bending cousin, which is far more useful as a raw industrial material.

“We are very pleased to have the signature,” Sen. Leno told the Guardian. “It’s been a 10-year effort to get here. It’s a job still, but [the passing of SB 566] will help sustain family farms in California for the future and likely create more job opportunities. Hemp is a $500 million a year industry in California, and it’s growing at 10 percent annually.”

California now follows in the footsteps of nine other states and 30 other countries that have reclassified the innocuous plant as a crop with agricultural and commercial value. And it is quite valuable.

“This is a miracle plant that has served the planet earth well for, literally, millennia, and that we currently legally manufacture and sell thousands of hemp products including food, clothing, shelter, paper, fuel, all biodegradable products,” said Leno. “It’s renewable every 90 days, grows without herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, and needs less water than corn. It is the definition of sustainability.”

But the reputation of hemp hasn’t always had champions like Sen. Leno. Since the initial proposal of HR 32 back in 1999, the bill has been vetoed four times by three different governors. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited a “false sense of security” he feared would be cultivated amongst the growers of the crop, due to its illegality at a federal level.

Gov. Brown had previously shot down the proposed legislation in 2011, citing a gap in state and federal law as the reason. However, he did remark in his veto message at the time that “it is absurd that hemp is being imported into the state, but our farmers cannot grow it.”

And it would seem that Brown’s recognition of hemp’s merits finally outweighed his concern over the potential for California growers to face federal prosecution, which is a major relief for the architects of SB 566. Now Californians can stop relying on imported hemp from Mexico and Canada (among other places) and start legally manufacturing their own.

“We currently manufacture literally thousands of [hemp] products — legally — and sell them,” said Leno. “This is why this issue has been so nonsensical.”

The “nonsensical” issue has had deep roots, given hemp’s historically ambiguous federal standing. As Brown’s 2011 veto message noted, “federal law clearly establishes that all cannabis plants, including industrial hemp, are marijuana, which is a federally regulated controlled substance.”

But that isn’t a universally held assertion. Back in 1970, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 “explicitly excludes nonpsychoactive hemp from the definition of marijuana,” a decision that the federal government never appealed. It’s a decision that Sen. Leno agrees with.

“We’ve always believed that there is no federal preemption, because we believe that that court case ruled that Congress had knowingly exempted industrial hemp from the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 –because it’s not a drug,” said Leno.

Now the state of California can do what more than 30 countries (including Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany and China) and nine states are already doing: Cultivating and processing a plant that many have touted as the “miracle plant.”

Now that SB 566 has passed, however, the looming question still remains as to how the federal government will respond. But Leno is confident that it will respect the will of California lawmakers.  

“I have great confidence in a recent statement by Attorney General Eric Holder,” said Leno. “He’s said that if a state puts into place a legal allowance and regulatory scheme, that the federal government would not interfere with marijuana. Now, we need clarification between hemp and marijuana, but there’s no sensical way that that could be interpreted that hemp is excluded, given that hemp’s not a drug.”

Either way, hemp is on the horizon here in California.

SF State campus police arming themselves with Tasers (yes, before the SFPD)

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Just because the SFPD can’t get Tasers doesn’t mean all the cops in San Francisco are missing out.

The San Francisco State University Police Department will soon arm themselves with conducted electrical weapons, known by the brand name Taser, following a statewide push from the California State University Chancellor’s Office to arm all of its campus police statewide with the weapons.

The university police started training with their new weapons Sept. 12, according to university spokesperson Ellen Griffin, but haven’t armed their 28 officers with them just yet. They still have to set rules for their use and the cabinet of SF State President Leslie Wong will soon meet to advise him in Taser policy. Details on what shape that policy will take are still hazy, the university told us.

“What I can say is that Dr. Wong is deeply committed to protecting the safety and welfare of our campus community,” said Shawn Whalen, a member of the president’s cabinet.

There is no statewide campus police policy for Taser use, according to California State University’s policy documents on weapons. A CSU spokesperson told us each campus makes its own rules for their local police force. 

For the past decade the SFPD has tried at various times to have their officers armed with Tasers but have met loud opposition and are without them to this day, a topic we’ve covered before. One of the most vocal opponents of the weapons, Police Commissioner Angela Chan, is concerned that the Tasers can be fatal.

“Tasers can cause serious injury or death and have cost law enforcement that use them millions of dollars in lawsuits,” she told the Guardian. About 500 people have been killed by Tasers in the US since 2001 according to a report Amnesty International released last year.

In Cincinnati a student Tasered subsequently died. Taser advocates say deaths are prevented by Taser use, however.

Of those killed, Amnesty International said, 90 percent of the victims were unarmed.

Despite the statistics, Tasers are in widespread use around the country and in the California State University system. 

Mike Uhlenkamp, spokesperson for the CSU chancellor’s office, said that 17 campus police forces were armed with Tasers, and now all 23 will have them, including SF State.

He was unable to say how much Taser use has cost the CSU system or provide statistics on their use. The most commonly bought Taser though, the X26, costs $1,000 a piece, according to Taser’s website. 

He was also unable to cite a specific incident or incidents that prompted the need for Tasers on CSU campuses. SF State university police reported exactly eight crimes for the week of September 9-15, including petty theft, vandalism, and possession of marijuana.

Uhlenkamp did say however that “every officer gets rigorous training,” part of which is actually getting Tasered themselves. 

“Every officer will have been on the other side of a Taser at some point,” he said. 

The arguments Taser advocates make for having the weapons is that they can be used in lieu of a gun. Steve Tuttle, spokesperson for Taser, said that was the reason 17,000 law enforcement agencies use Tasers worldwide.

“I think its a loud minority that’s gotten their way in San Francisco,” Tuttle said. The idea that SFPD is the lone holdout had him saying that the “vocal minority” got their way. 

But Chan said that’s a myth. Tasers are often used as a compliance weapon when an individual is passively resisting arrest or not responding to an officer’s commands, she said.  “Unfortunately, this can lead to overuse and unnecessary use, especially on young people and people of color, as we’ve seen around the country, including on college campuses.”

She has reason to be concerned about the safety of the campus community. When activist squatters were arrested in May by SF State’s university police, allegations of excessive force streamed in. 

The activists printed a zine documenting their experience. Melissa Nahlen, 25, reportedly wound up with “cuts near her eyes, a bruised and swollen lip, a swollen left hand … and cannot bend her neck downward due to being stomped on by the police.”

A campus police officer also sustained injuries, according to news reports. 

Video of officers arresting activists in an SF State dorm. As SFSU police and SFPD were both present, it is unclear which officers are in the video.

Tasers are used to avoid just that kind of situation, Training Lieutenant Randall Gregson of the BART police department told us. Though policies differ from department to department, Gregson ran the Guardian through BART’s tactics in using Tasers to provide a glimpse in the things SFSU will need to consider. 

BART police carry their Tasers on the “support” side of the belt, meaning the non-dominant side, he said. They also have a choice of carrying it in their duty belt on a thigh holster. “It’s an officer’s individual preference,” he said.

That preference is important, and sometimes could mean the difference between life and death. 

When BART officer Johannes Mehserle reached for his Taser but mistakenly drew his gun and shot and killed Oscar Grant back in 2009, issues about where to holster officer weapons came to the fore. 

Mehserle’s lawyer made a motion to admit BART’s holster policy as evidence in the case. From the text of the motion: “The changes in BART’s training and Taser policy – removing two dominant side belt configurations and requiring officers to draw the Taser with their weak hands – constitute highly relevant evidence of an acknowledgement by BART that the prior training and policy made an accident of the sort that occurred in this case more likely, and perhaps even highly likely.”

The evidence was admitted to ask, as the lawyer wrote, “How could a trained officer mistakenly pull and fire his gun if, as he claims, he intended to deploy his Taser?”

That’s the exact kind of incident SF State President Leslie Wong’s policy will address for his officers, and the lives of the students of San Francisco State University may depend on it. 

Feds force pot clubs to deal in cash, then ban use of armored cars

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In the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest attempt to smoke out medical marijuana dispensaries in the United States, the federal government agency made the decision to ban the use of armored cars by marijuana providers. Compounding that problem, over the last year banking companies, under pressure from the feds, have been refusing to do business with dispensaries, forcing them conduct all-cash transactions.

Dispensaries and their employees all around the Bay Area are being needlessly endangered by this decision. Businesses such as Oakland’s Harborside Health Center — which brings in about $30 million a year, according to co-founder and executive director Steve DeAngelo — stand to take a big hit.

“This decision puts my staff and I at risk,” DeAngelo told us. “People have been known to stake out the property, and having unarmored transport without a secured professional to the US Treasury makes the job even more dangerous.”

DeAngelo declined to comment on how his dispensary will transport money without armored cars. Others, such as Diane Goldstein, a retired lieutenant commander of the Redondo Beach police department and member of the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, finds the decision to be downright unethical.

“It’s unethical in the sense that the DEA made the decision without considering the collateral damage that could be caused,” Goldstein said. “It endangers the people that have to transport large sums of money unprotected, law enforcement, and the community at large.”

But there is a glimmer of hope: the Department of Justice issued a memo last week that was a step forward in support of the federal government respecting states like Washington and Colorado where even recreational use of marijuana has been made legal by state ballot initiatives. The DOJ memo outlines enforcement policies such as not selling to minors or having revenue from dispensaries go to gangs or drug cartels.

“There is hope with the new memorandum released,” Dan Goldman, community liaison for the Green Cross in San Francisco said. “Though it does not directly apply to states where marijuana has not been legalized, it is a step forward.”

DeAngelo and others decried the memo as vague, but ultimately counted it as progress that may support a “large increase in momentum” in the plight for further legitimacy in the medical marijuana business.

But this clearly isn’t the first or last time DeAngelo and many other dispensaries have had the legality of their business questioned. Harborside has been locked in court battles since U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag made the move for a forfeiture proceeding for the businesses’ Oakland and San Jose properties last July. Last month federal magistrate Judge Maria Elena James granted a temporary halt to the forfeiture proceedings.

Is DeAngelo worried? “We’re in a holding pattern for the next two to two-and-a-half years,” DeAngelo said. “I’m positive that our business will continue to thrive just as it always does.”

In the meantime,  US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has invited Attorney General Eric Holder to testify at a Sept. 10 hearing regarding whether the feds should be respecting state marijuana laws. 

 

 

 

 

The Selector: August 7 -13, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 7

White Fence

Listen to White Fence’s psych-folk track “To The Boy I Jumped In The Hemlock Alley,” off the spring-released full-length Cyclops Reap, and it may renew your faith in classic songwriting. Or at least make you feel like you’re listening to the Beatles for the first time on acid. The woozy tune has a consistently mellow flow sliced through with glistening pysch riffs that sound like a flaming saw singeing through campfire wood. The album picks up quicker elsewhere, in blistering, boiling Nuggets-fashion on electrifying “Pink Gorilla.” But this much is now expected from LA/SF songwriter-guitarist Tim Presley — he’s the main force of White Fence — a consistently compelling and inventive musician, and frequent collaborator with the likes of Ty Segall. The show tonight includes essential openers like local singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt and Foxygen’s Bob Dylan-esque singer Jonathan Rado performing his solo work, Law and Order. (Emily Savage)

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

THURSDAY 8

Goodnight, Texas

Having blown up in the past year, San Francisco’s Goodnight, Texas has gotten the opportunity to make its pleasantly earnest vocals, foot-stomping banjo riffs, and catchy melodies quite public. Frontperson Avi Vinocur conveys a nostalgic realness in his voice so immediate that it’s almost impossible not to get pulled away into one of the group’s old-time, dust-and-bones, gritty country blues stories. Something real and excitably beautiful translates in the group’s music. Listen to the pure vocals alongside pleasant acoustic melodies and simply try not to believe everything Vinocur is singing — it’s damn hard. (Smith)

With Fox and Woman,and Vandella

8pm, $10

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market,SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

casebolt and smith

Very charming, very chatty Los Angeles-based duet dance theater company casebolt and smith (comprised of Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith) visits San Francisco with O(h) — “a title that makes no sense,” the group muses in a YouTube clip of the work. Also contained therein: an energetic, rollin’-like-Ike-and-Tina riff on “Proud Mary;” a deadpan conversation about breakdancing (“I’ve taken, like, two classes”), underpants-clad flailing; and show-tune crooning, with a sudden nervous pause to wonder if the singer maybe should be singing in a lower register. In other words, it’s not your typical night of dance, but neither is it entirely goofy — all those self-deprecating jokes and pop-culture references are worked into a sly commentary on the dancemaking process. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/10, 8pm, $28

ODC Theater

3153 17th St, SF

www.odctheater.org

 

The Calamity Cubes

They’re an unexpected group, and the Calamity Cubes’ take on country music is unpredictable. Instead of the lonesome, lovesick ramblings of a cowboy, the group creates a vibe more like that of a cowpoke who just fell off his horse. They play harder than country, calling their style “thrashicana.” The twangy tugs of banjo, upright bass, and acoustic guitar teeter on bluegrass only to be played with such force and speed that punk wouldn’t be a far off description either. The trio may be rough around the edges, but its sound is anything but. Extremely versatile, the group’s tunes go from a basic country number with howling vocals to an electrified thrash of a song with energy that can’t be ignored. (Hillary Smith)

With the Goddamn Gallows, Kountry Kittens

9pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-445

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

FRIDAY 9

Bay Area Deaf Dance Festival

Under the leadership of artistic director Antoine Hunter, who’s also among the performers with his Urban Jazz Dance Company, the first-ever Bay Area Deaf Dance Festival aims to “showcase the contributions of the deaf community to the arts, raise deaf awareness in non-deaf populations, and encourage artistic expression in Bay Area residents.” The three-day event features collaborations between deaf and hearing-impaired artists with hearing artists in both the performing and visual arts realms. Participants include Half-N-Half, composed of children of deaf adults who incorporate ASL storytelling into their act; Beethoven’s Nightmare, a musical group whose name pays tribute to the famously deaf composer; the National Deaf Dance Theater; the all-male, all-deaf troupe Wild Zappers; dance-physical theater group Lux Aeterna Dance Company, and more. (Eddy)

Through Sun/11, 7:30pm, $20

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St, SF

www.dancemission.com

 

Jessye Norman

The last time we saw grand opera diva Jessye Norman, she was typing out a French love letter on the SF Symphony stage in a stunning Issey Miyake gown, before tasting a fruit smoothie made by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. It was all part of John Cage’s brilliantly random 1970 Song Books composition, which moved the crowd to tears of joy. A longtime traveler through many musical realms, the regal Norman is game for anything. This time with the Symphony she’ll be giving a recital of another songbook, the American one, with selections from Gershwin, Arlen, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. (She’ll be coming directly from Washington, DC, where she’ll take part in a 50th commemoration of the March on Washington by slipping into the shoes of the great Marian Anderson.) There won’t be any smoothies this time, but the music will be fresh and light. (Marke B.)

Fri/9, $15–$115

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF.

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

Glass Candy

The synth-heavy, electro-punk group that is Glass Candy returns to San Francisco this weekend, fresh off a jarring slot at that oh-so-hip Pitchfork Music Festival. The broader crowds still, after all these years, seem not quite sure what to make of the amorphous, experimental, and ever-evolving duo. And that’s precisely what keeps it interesting. Producer Johnny Jewel (also of Chromatics, and co-owner of dance label Italians Do It Better) and casual, Nico-esque vocalist Ida No have been doing this whole Glass Candy gig since ’96, yet each tour, each new release (2003’s Love Love Love, 2007’s B/E/A/T/B/O/X) brings some different flavor of stimulating Italo-disco glitter cut with speed and Kraut. This is also why those who’ve fallen in line behind the duo have long been itching for a new record, the promised Body Work, which is purportedly coming out soon, after a teaser single of “Halloween” released on Oct. 31, 2011. (Savage)

With Omar Perez, Stanley Frank, Bus Station John

9pm, $20

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8800

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

SATURDAY 8/10

Pistahan Parade and Festival

The Bay Area is home to a robust Filipino American population, which means Filipino American Arts Exposition’s annual Pistahan Parade and Festival — now in its 20th year — offers authentic tastes, sounds, and sights for all who attend. Highlights include the energetic parade (today, 11am, begins at Civic Center and ends near Yerba Buena Gardens), which offers prizes for the best costume, best choreography, and best overall contingent. Plus: a Culinary Pavilion (whose adobo will conquer the competition? Who will gobble the most balut?); a Martial Arts Pavilion (with kids battling it out for stick-fighting supremacy); and a generous array of entertainment on multiple stages, including youth dance crews, traditional dance and music performances, comedian Rex Navarette, and a pair of reality stars (X Factor Philippines winner KZ Tandingan, and American Idol semi-finalist Jordan Segundo). (Eddy)

Through Sun/11, 11am-5pm, free

Yerba Buena Gardens

Mission at Third St, SF

www.pistahan.net

 

Cheech and Chong

“Dave’s not here man!” But the original dynamic duo of dope, Cheech and Chong, is indeed going to be in the city tonight to light up the comedy scene in the way that only it can do. Once again bringing their marijuana-laced humor and stoned stage show to their fans around the world, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong may be older, but the humor of their act remains ageless. The two pontiffs of pot recently released an animated film, using clips from many of their records and skits — here’s your chance relive those classic bits live (and high) in person — get your tickets now before they all go up in smoke! (Sean McCourt)

7:30pm, $35–$79.50

America’s Cup Pavilion

Piers 27/29, SF

www.livenation.com


King Tuff

King Tuff, the man, the myth, the guy with the “sun medallion” is coming along with his pals and bandmates to play at Brick and Mortar Music Hall the day before his Outside Lands performance. Mixing glam and garage rock, King Tuff crafts music that makes you want to shuffle on the dance floor. He’s come into success with career milestones such as being added to the lineup at OSL — he’s usually known for playing smaller fests like Burger Record’s Burgerama

and 1-2-3-4 Go! Records’ Go! Go! Fest. The artist has also reached #8 in Billboard’s Heatseeker Albums with Was Dead, after its late May reissue on Burger Records. In short, come see this animal before it disappears into the vast expanse known as Golden Gate Park (for Outside Lands, duh)! (Erin Dage)

With the Men, Twin Peaks

10pm, $20

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 371-1631

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

SUNDAY 8/11

King Kong vs Godzilla

With Pacific Rim still hanging in there at the box office, what better time than now to revisit one of the original massive monster mash ups? As part of Will Viharo’s awesome “Thrillville” series of film events, August Ragone — award-winning author of Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters, which looked at the life of the Japanese special effects legend — will host King Kong vs Godzilla, the 1962 romp that pitted the two titanic creatures against each other in a no-holds-barred, city-smashing smackdown. Hear about the making of the movie, see behind the scenes photos, then grab some beers and get ready to rumble! (McCourt)

6pm, $6

New Parkway

474 24th St., Oakl.

www.thenewparkway.com

 

TUESDAY 8/13

Jeff Rosenstock (of Bomb the Music Industry!)

Blistering, honest punk rock from a man and his laptop: Jeff Rosenstock manages to take the stripped-down guitar and computer layout of a minimal Beck set and flip it on its ear with DIY punk rockness. Doing so, he creates unexpectedly intricate, yet rambling, song structures. Basically, he’s a room-galvanizing force of singalongs, like with the track “Amen” from his new album I Look Like Shit, which asks “So what’s the difference if the bombs fall from the sky? So what’s the difference if you like being alive?” Rosenstock, who previously sung about an unending purgatory of watered-down all-ages shows clashing with his dreams of maturing as a musician, will be playing with labelmates Dog Party, teenage sisters representing the age bracket of most of Rosenstock’s fans. Also that guy from Andrew Jackson Jihad whom everyone’s always talking about (Sean Bonnette) and Hard Girls, who write songs about the movie Major Payne. (Ilan Moskowitz)

8:30pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th Street, SF (415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

Netrootin’: Dispatches from the progressive tech networking confab

4

George McIntire is reporting live from Netroots Nation ’13 in San Jose

Good morning all you liberals, progressives, socialists, leftists, environmentalists, civil libertarians, feminists, queer activists, radical freegan communists and everyone else! Today is the first day of the 8th annual running of the liberals more commonly know as the Netroots Nation Conference and your correspondent for the three-day liberalchella (I promise that’s the only time I’ll use that term) has just arrived in beautiful San Jose.


Everyone is buzzing about the issues du jour of gay marriage (SCOTUS ruling coming soon), immigration (the one issue Congress might actually work on), and civil liberties (all your phone calls are belong to NSA). Will there be a schism due to the Obama’s administration’s abhorrent record on civil liberties? Or perhaps a new era of progressivism will ignite? Maybe Pride will just kick in and everyone will throw on a wig and rainbow boa. Stay tuned to find out!

For the next 60 hours I will be reporting, blogging, and tweeting on the panels, talks, keynote speeches, attendees, and anything else I see fit to report (in addition to photographing the event). Unfortunately for me the paradox of choice will be in full effect and I do not have a way to clone myself. There are 14 events to choose from during the 3-4:15pm time slot and 16 events during the 4:30-5:45 slot, not to mention all the after parties. Here is the schedule.

So I call on you Guardian faithful to help me decide which events to cover. Should I check out “Moving the Needle: How We Won Gay Marriage in 2012” or “Smoke Signals: The Next Steps in Marijuana Reform” or “Beating Back Mansplaining & Sexism in Politics & Organizing”. Please let me know in the comments or you can tweet at me at @gorejusgeorge.

Scorning smokers

news@sfbg.com

San Francisco officials are attempting to ban the public use of e-cigarettes under the same laws that restrict smoking cigarettes, which are banned in most public places purportedly because secondhand smoke endangers others. However, the alleged lack of toxic emissions from e-cigarette vapor raises questions about the basis for the crackdown.

Has the crusade against smoking in public really been about protecting the innocent, or is the moralistic motivation to try to save people from their own bad choices also driving the trend? And if so, does that undermine the legal basis for restricting an otherwise lawful product?

Since 2011, the San Francisco Department of Public Health has backed legislation to hold e-cigarettes under the same public smoking laws as traditional tobacco products. Currently, San Francisco’s continually expanding smoke-free ordinance bans cigarette consumption in nearly any public place. This consists of Muni stops, festivals, parks, farmers’ markets, non-smoking apartments and, unfortunately for all you nicotine-addicted bingo lovers, the obscure addition of “charity bingo games.”

San Francisco has yet to pass any regulatory laws regarding e-cigarette consumption, or “vaping.” But Nick Pagoulatos, a legislative aide to Sup. Eric Mar, a staunch sponsor of San Francisco’s many anti-smoking policies, says a plan is in the works.

“Currently there is nothing on the books,” Pagoulatos told the Bay Guardian. “But there has been discussion with the health department [which is] working something up and the Mayor’s Office has been talking with them as well. The timing is unclear, but at some point it will happen.”

California Senate Bill 648, approved in May and currently on its way to the California Assembly, would elevate similar e-cigarette regulations to a state level. So why are California and San Francisco pushing so hard to regulate these products?

“The suspicion is that allowing people to vape these things reinforces the culture of smoking,” Pagoulatos said. “It continues in the tradition of making smoking look cool, even if it’s not actual smoke.”

Traditionally, San Francisco’s smoking ordinances have derived from the hazards of secondhand smoke on innocent bystanders, but the regulation of e-cigarettes evokes an entirely new basis for public smoking laws.

California has an active history of anti-smoking legislation beginning in the 1990s when San Luis Obispo became the first city in the world to ban smoking in all public buildings. In 1998, the public smoking ban elevated to the state level, specifically because of the health risks posed to bar and restaurant employees by secondhand smoke. This year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to extend the already strict non-smoking laws to cover festivals and street fairs and require landlords to designate their building units as smoking or non-smoking. Now, vapers in California face a similar threat.

 

VAPING ISN’T SMOKING

E-cigarettes contain a battery operated heating device that vaporizes a combination of nicotine and a binding liquid such as propylene glycol, a substance “generally recognized as safe” by the FDA. Since nicotine is not what kills smokers, e-cigarettes have the potential to exist as a safe alternative for smokers who can feed both the physical and mental habit of smoking without the detrimental effects of tar and the plethora of other chemicals found in traditional cigarettes.

However, conflicting studies exist regarding the safety of e-cigarettes for both users and the public. While the FDA has yet to regulate e-cigarettes, a 2009 evaluation reported the finding of numerous chemicals in e-cigarette liquid, such as those found in antifreeze.

Gregory Conley, legislative director for The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association, told us these reports are misleading.

“Essentially, there is absolutely no evidence that e-cigarette vapor poses any significant threat to public health,” said Conley. “The antifreeze chemical was found in one of the 18 cartridges and tested in an amount that was less than 1 percent. Additionally, the amount of the chemical diethylene glycol found by the FDA would take thousands of cartridges to reach a toxic level.”

Conley cites the publication Tobacco Control, a premier tobacco science journal in the US with no tobacco industry ties, as the leading evidence in the case for e-cigarettes. The study, funded by the National Institute of Health, tested 17 different brands of e-cigarettes for chemicals known to cause harm in secondhand smoke.

“These amounts were nearly identical to the amounts in the control product, or the FDA approved nicotine inhaler,” said Conley. “They are trace levels, and anyone who has been in a room with an e-cigarette knows that there is a vast difference in comparison to a normal cigarette.”

A study by the Fraunhofer Wilhelm-Klauditz-Institut in Braunschweig, Germany found similar results, reporting that the release of toxins from e-cigarettes were marginal to non-existent. In fact, researchers attributed many of the low level chemicals detected in the tests, such as formaldehyde and acetone, to the test subjects, since our lungs naturally exhale these chemicals in small amounts.

Conley says e-cigarettes not only provide a safe alternative, but also offer a public promotion of smoking cessation by illustrating the addicting effects of nicotine.

“It’s a walking advertisement to show how addictive cigarettes are,” Conley said. “The fact that you have to buy one of these things to quit smoking, with a battery and everything, it’s ridiculous.

 

TARGETTING TOBACCO

Equating e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes does tend to disregard the potential benefits safer nicotine alternatives can have on addicts. The language of the FDA and the DPH appears to dismiss the advantages of e-cigarettes over smoking. While issues certainly arise with the lack of regulation and quality control of e-cigarettes, much of the discussion from these groups pertains to reversing social views on smoking.

“The major concern for us is about social norms,” Derek Smith, a health program coordinator at the Tobacco Free Project, told us. “People get confused about the use of these products in public where they might think tobacco use is allowed. That’s one of the major concerns because there are limits to where people can safely smoke indoors. It’s the idea of a copycat item.”

According to Smith, AT&T Park, San Francisco General Hospital, and the San Francisco Airport Commission have all already banned the use of e-cigarettes on their premises. Some Bay Area cities, such as Petaluma, have already classified vaping under their smoking ordinances. In Canada, the sale of e-cigarettes is entirely prohibited due to a lack of regulation and quality control, while cigarettes remain legal.

FDA regulation could certainly alleviate much of the pressure e-cigarette companies face from the public. However, if a safe e-cigarette is proven to exist via an official FDA evaluation, organizations like the DPH may still not allow public vaping for the sake of remaining strictly against the use of tobacco related products in public places.

Many of the arguments against the use of e-cigarettes are seemingly arbitrary to the discussion of public use since San Francisco’s public policy holds so much blunt hostility toward anything tobacco related (but, of course, anything marijuana related is okay with the city). Oddly, e-cigarettes continue to get flack from the FDA, while other nicotine delivery systems such as patches and gum are FDA approved.

Under what legal grounds could San Francisco’s government have the right to ban e-cigarette usage in public places if they are proved harmless? If the legislation passes, residents of non-smoking apartments would be unable to legally vape a scentless, allegedly toxin free e-cigarette in the privacy of their own home.

 

FEDS AND E-CIGS

In March the FDA appointed Mitch Zeller as the new director of the Center for Tobacco Products. According to his FDA profile, Zeller, a lifelong proponent of FDA tobacco regulation, has deep-rooted ties to the anti-smoking movement and is currently an executive of a pharmaceutical consulting firm working closely with sellers of FDA approved, nicotine-replacement pharmaceuticals.

But Zeller has openly advocated the idea of harm reduction through nicotine-replacement systems, much more than his predecessor, Dr. Lawrence Deyton. So hope may yet exist for the plight of vapers who don’t want to be lumped in with smokers. So much of the anti-smoking conversation is drenched in black-and-white thinking, promoting a system of total abolition over harm reduction. Unfortunately for smokers, this could impede their transition to a safe nicotine delivery system that they can use virtually anywhere, and one that may consequently help save lives. As of now, public discourse and education may act as the most important catalyst toward a widespread understanding of e-cigarettes.

For anyone who has seen an e-cigarette, the soft glow of the LED light at the end has little resemblance to a traditional cigarette, which is on fire and emitting a cloud of noxious smoke. If an FDA approved, emission-free e-cigarette eventually hits the market, users in San Francisco could still face a loss of freedom solely backed by the ideological social standards of the anti-smoking movement, which would bar them from vaping in public. But for now, San Francisco’s vapers should enjoy their freedom while it lasts.

CORRECTION: This article was corrected to change the chemical name in Conley’s quote from propylene glycol and to clarify that the FDA studied the liquid in e-cigarettes, not their emissions. 

SFPD responds (weirdly) to allegations of racial disparity

The San Francisco Police Department has issued a head-scratching response to charges of racial disparity in marijuana arrests, possibly in an attempt to defuse controversy over a recent incident that already has some members of the African American community up in arms.

This latest flap started Monday, when the New York Times ran a piece about an American Civil Liberties Union analysis finding that nationwide, Black Americans were four times more likely to be arrested than white people on charges of marijuana possession in 2010.

On Tuesday, the East Bay Express drew attention to that report. Then, the Chronicle ran a story suggesting that racial disparity in marijuana arrests extends to San Francisco – a city where white people have such affinity for weed that they’re known to congregate in droves not only on Hippie Hill but also Dolores Park to commemorate 4/20 with collective puffs of smoke.

The Chronicle piece seizes on 2010 data to back up its claim, noting:

“Black residents made up 6 percent of San Francisco’s population in 2010 while whites comprised 55 percent. The ACLU report said that of 298 marijuana possession arrests that year, 99 were black suspects and 195 were white suspects.” This would appear to suggest that a disproportionate number of Black suspects were arrested for marijuana possession. The Chron also pointed out, “the ACLU’s report analyzed arrest data from 2001 through 2010.”

Earlier today, the SFPD issued a response, apparently attempting to set the local press straight. It states: “This is not so. The San Francisco Police Department does not racially profile.”

To back up its claim, officers in the SFPD’s Media Relations Unit wrote: 

“In 2011, the SFPD made over 23,000 arrests, of which 14,000 were classified as misdemeanors. Today, Chief [Greg] Suhr reviewed all 11 misdemeanor marijuana arrest reports from 2011. All 11 misdemeanor marijuana charges were secondary to other charges, e.g., outstanding warrants, weapons possession, drunk in public, for which the person (four white males, three black males, two black females, one Hispanic male, and one white female) were arrested and booked. It is evident that the misdemeanor marijuana arrests cited in the article were made using sound police procedure pertaining to criminal activity and not by racial profiling.”

But this response fails to address the ACLU’s findings head on. If the New York Times and Chronicle pieces specifically hinged on 2010 figures, why did Suhr review data from 2011? The only hint comes in the SFPD statement, which notes that 2011 “was Chief Suhr’s first year as chief.”

Some wins, some losses in Sacto

9

The state Assembly and Senate passed the usual flurry of bills on May 31, the last day for initial-house approval, with some unusual drama that temporarily sidelined a medical-marijuana bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano.

By the time it was all over, several other Ammiano bills passed, a measure by Assemblymember Phil Ting to ease the way for a Warriors arena on the waterfront won approval, and state Sen. Mark Leno got most of his major legislation through.

The pot bill, AB 473, would have established a state regulatory framework for medical cannabis, something that most advocates and providers support. Still, because the subject is marijuana, it was no easy sell and at first, a lot of members, both Republicans and Democrats, expressed concern that the measure might restrict the ability of local government to ban or limit dispensaries.

Ammiano, in presenting the bill, made it clear that it had no impact on local control, and that was enough to get 38 votes. Typically, when a bill is that close to passage, the chair asks the sponsor if he or she wants to “hold the call” that is, freeze the vote for a few minutes so supporters can make sure all of their allies are actually on the floor and voting and to try, if necessary, to round up a couple of wobblers.

In this case, though, Speaker Pro Tem Nora Campos, of San Jose, simply gaveled the vote to a close while Ammiano was scrambling to get her to hold it. “That’s very unusual, not good behavior,” one Sacramento insider told me.

Ammiano was more respectful toward Campos, simply calling it a “procedural mistake.” He told us he would be looking for other ways to move the bill. “The door is never fully closed up here,” he said.

However that turns out, the veteran Assemblymember, now in his final term, won a resounding victory with the passage of his Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, AB 241. The bill would give domestic workers some of the same labor rights as other employees, including the right to overtime pay and breaks. “These workers, who are mostly women, keep our households running smoothly, care for our children, and enable people with disabilities to live at home and remain engaged in our communities,” Ammiano said. “Why shouldn’t they have overtime protections like the average barista or gas station attendant?”

An Ammiano bill restricting the ability of prosecutors to use condom possession as evidence in prostitution cases also cleared, as did a bill tightening safety rules on firearms.

Ting’s bill, AB 1273, would allow the state Legislature, not the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, to make a key finding on whether the new area is appropriate for the shoreline. Mayor Ed Lee and the Warriors strongly backed the measure, clearly believing it would make the path to development easier. Ammiano voted against it showing that the San Francisco delegation is by no means unanimous on this issue.

Leno had a string of significant victories. A bill called the Disclose Act, which would mandate that all campaign ads reveal, in large, readable type, who is actually paying for them, cleared with the precise two-thirds majority needed and it was a straight party-line vote. Every single Republican was in opposition. “They know that if their ads say “paid for by Chevron and PG&E, the won’t work as well,” Leno told us.

He also won approval for a bill that would ease the way for people wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit to receive the modest $100 a day payment the state theoretically owes them. There are 132 people cleared of crimes and released from prison, but the process of applying for the payment is currently so onerous that only 11 have actually gotten a penny. “We victimized these people, and we shouldn’t make them prove their innocence twice,” Leno said.

Bills to better monitor price manipulation by oil companies and to expand the trauma recovery program pioneered by San Francisco General Hospital also cleared the Senate floor.

But Leno had a disappointing loss, too: A bill that would have helped tenants collect on security deposits that landlords wrongfully withheld died with only 12 vote a sign of how powerful the real-estate industry remains in Sacramento.

 

Pot, domestic worker bills win approval

3

Two bills that we’ve been following, one to regulate medical marijuana and the other to give domestic workers some basic rights, won approval from a key state Assembly committee and are headed for the Assembly floor.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s AB 473, which would create a division under the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to write statewide regs for dispensaries, cleared the Appropriations Committee (where many good bills go to die) May 24. It’s a big step: For years, most of official Sacramento was afraid even to talk about the devil weed, much less take action on something that might look like a sign of approval. Now that the biggest problem with medical marijuana is zoning (and federal crackdowns) — and frankly, California is only a couple of years away from following Colorado and legalizing pot anyway — it makes sense to have a framework in place to ensure quality control, register dispensaries … and maybe convince the feds to back down.

The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, AB 241, would require people to treat household workers with the same respect and the same types of benefits as most other workers. It would mandate work breaks, sleep breaks, overtime … pretty basic stuff. But the guv, for reasons known only to him, vetoed it last time around. Perhaps he’ll come to his senses.

The bills will probably make it to the Assembly floor next week.

 

No need to drop names: Freak City is the Internet’s IRL cultural center

0

STREET SEEN I like LA because outfits don’t have to be as functional. In San Francisco, you’re always worrying about whether you’ll flash someone disembarking from your single-speed, about what exactly is going to happen to those white platform sandals inside the Montgomery Street BART station. Oh lord, sandals in San Francisco?

In Los Angeles, you can wear whatever the hell you want. After all (just to be SF-bitchy about it), they don’t dance down there, they certainly don’t walk, and you probably won’t broach the waterline at the beach, so the gold braid on your swimsuit? Appropriate, necessary. (Just take it off when you go in the pool.) In Los Angeles, you are allowed to dress like you are at the white-hot center of the hip universe, free of earthly fetters. Buy the dress in midriff.

And in this year of 2013 AD, Freak City is the place to shop for one’s interstellar journey. 

Freak City hosts Rye Rye concerts. Also, it’s a clothing store. 

If you can find it. This is not a store that deals much with walk-in traffic. Located in a dilapidated old department store on Hollywood Boulevard amid stripper stores and concrete stars, a few blocks from a combination health food store-spa where one can buy raw juice and a B12 injection in a single high-powered errand, Freak City encourages the art of the shopping appointment.

After spotting the Day-Glo-tagged interiors in the latest Gucci Mane-Wiz Khalifa spot directed by Video God, we were thrilled to bits when FC co-owner Justin Time responded in the affirmative to our Sunday morning voicemail pleas. 

Soon enough, he was leading us past FC’s Internet-famous club space to the chainlink fence that marked the start of the retail area. 

“I think that was in a Miley video.” 

Full-length fleece hoodie dresses, digital garden wear, frenetic usage of charm bracelet motif. These are the markings of LA Rap!, the in-house Freak City brand designed by Time’s co-owner and partner-in-crime Vally Girl. She sits at the cash register answering our questions politely in front of a short white mock turtleneck dress bedazzled by a hundred plastic toys hanging on the chain-link. She tells us Queen Cyrus picked it up for a video not too long ago.

You get used to those throwaway references to pop culture domination here — the marijuana leaf lab coat you’re crusing on the LA Rap! website is shown modeled by Lady Tragik, sitting on a car hood with a “GURL” beanie-wearing Kreayshawn. The list of in-house performers in the Freak City club is long: Rye Rye, Mykki Blanco, Peaches, M.I.A.

Vally has styled Nicki Minaj on tour. Diplo told Mix Mag back in 2011 that the ramshackle department store, retrofitted with troll doll-decorated fitting rooms and terrifying mannequins that loom over us on our Sunday afternoon visit, was his favorite club in the world.

Freak City is a cultural center for the Internet generation — check the ski masks emblazoned with the arcing wi-fi symbol above the eyesockets that, retailing at $100 a pop, probably show up in more Tumblr feeds than closets.  

Things I cruised at Freak City: a lime green, tightly-knit shirt with strips of mesh an inch wide down the center, side seams, and breastbone. A deadstock purple ‘90s swimsuit, again with mesh where mesh should not be, and duh gold braid. I bought some cross-strap white platform sandals, which have against the odds insinuated themselves in my San Francisco wardrobe. 

Later, I hit up Vally Girl YEP ON THE INTERNET to figure out how hype that hot comes about. 

San Francisco Bay Guardian Tell me how Freak City got started.

Vally Girl It all started when this lil’ school girl met this street boy … fast-forward three years — after living in Hollyhood, playing warehouse shows, throwing underground parties, making artwork and creating a line — to Justin convincing me to go in on a commercial space in East Hollywood off Melrose, which was found accidentally and was offered to us with no credit check due to the poor economy and we set up shop.

We threw a few events there and the space served as our store, gallery, and music studio.

Our psycho neighbor next door hated us for rehearsing for our shows, for beatboxing, rapping, and playing our 808. He “hated hip hop.” How Freak City actually got it’s name is pretty random … Justin wanted to do a party with his friend, and had doodled the logo “Freak City” (which was one of the first of our logos) on a Post-It note that I had seen. At the time we were calling our space the Lipstick Gallery, but when I saw the Post-It note, a light bulb went on, and I announced to everyone, “why don’t we call this place Freak City?” We all agreed and ran with it.  

SFBG What was in your building before you guys? It’s so creepy.

VG This is the third location that we’ve been in, which is also the creepiest. This place was an old department store-fashion graveyard. It was full of old merchandise, alien-like mannequins, men’s ’90s fancy suits and silk shirts, Calvin Klein fixtures, cross-colors displays, tons of Timberlands, and really, really baggy Phat Farm jeans and Ralph Lauren ads. There was also a bunch of tacky club girl and quinceanera dresses. 

SFBG Had you two collaborated on past projects?

VG Our first collaboration was music, our bedroom band The Keyishe. We also worked on art together and painted a few murals. One was with Raven Simone for an orphanage. Then we started the clothing line LA Rap! We also started working on music videos together, music production, set design, and art direction.   

SFBG Describe the Freak City aesthetic. What artists or brands do you see as part of the same school of style?

VG Freak City is Ghetto Tech Hood Couture, bridging the past, present, and future of the underground. There are freaks all around the world, no need to drop names 🙂 

SFBG Please tell me about shooting the Gucci Mane video in the Freak City space.

VG Naked video vixens, a lot of body paint, Ferraris, black lights, and blunts … It was fun, Gucci showed us a lot of love. He was freestyling over some Freak City beats and chilling with his posse. Even his girl copped some custom pieces from the shop. The director Video God is the homie, so it was all love that night. 

SFBG What other kinds of events have you used the space for?

VG We hosted a Fader magazine party with Lil B, had Peaches perform here, Egyptian Lover live, Limelight movie screening, tons of other underground nights, and some baller birthday parties. 

SFBG Who would you want to dress who you haven’t yet?

VG I’d actually like to design some pieces for Bjork. 

Freak City 6363 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles. freakcity.la. To schedule a shopping appointment email freakcityla@gmail.com

Legalize it–All of it

64

Tomorrow is election day in Los Angeles and beyond the biggest race (for mayor between a pair of dull left of center bureaucrats of whom the less said is better), the most important ballot measures are three that, in varying degrees, are used to restrict the explosion and proliferation of Cannabis Clinics, “pot clubs”, “Chronicatoriums” (OK, I made that one up) or whatever you’d care to call them. Naturally, the most popular of these, according to polls, is the measure that would severely restrict the number of such venues as they are the classic NIMBY, filling up Southern California’s mini-malls with stoners disinclined to buy anything else from whatever shops are there. Which, regardless of what moral trepidation is claimed by shopkeepers, is the source of their objection, as the Brains or Cyndi Lauper could tell you, money does change everything.

That this is restraint of trade in the extreme is an understatement but given the nature of “medicinal marijuana”, what do you expect? While it is true that marijuana does have valid medical use for glaucoma, nausea from chemo, insomnia and some forms of nerve pain, the only reason this half measure exists is as the gateway to the drug’s eventual legalization. As the case with any “moral scourge”, once it is plainly obvious that the world isn’t gonna end because people toke up and enough marginally interested voters switch their positions as a result (see the companion issue “marriage, gay“), end of laws. Which is why I’ve always seen medicinal marijuana as a crock of undiluted crap in the first place–the drug, in fact all recreational drugs, should be legal for adults period. Not incrementally and yes, all of them.

For the weed, that is inevitable and has happened already in Colorado and Washington state (with some restrictions). Marijuana is not seen as a dangerous drug, not responsible for overdoses, not anywhere near as physically addiciting (if at all) as the presently legal alcohol, nicotine or caffeine. While it’s true that some of the affectations that go along with it can be somewhat inexplicable (see “bands, jam“), they tend to be harmless and as is, the legalization of the drug is a slam dunk (or should be). This isn’t exactly a radical idea and does have an unusual array of proponents.

In reality, all recreational drugs should be. Even the “bad” ones. First of all as “bad” as hard drugs are supposed to be, the laws that govern the punishment for their use are far worse, more life destroying, costlier and have made the US the world’s number one prison state. Secondly, despite being illegal and punishment for same being draconian, people still seem to do lots of them at the danger of their health and well being–yet, when heart disease and diabetes are the first and seventh causes of death in the US, there is no similar call for imprisonment for either overeating, sedentary lifestyle or the injection of corn syrup into processed foods which lead to both–seems absurd. And yes–one does have to eat to live, one doesn’t have to eat everything!

It’s true–tweakers are gross, crackheads are whacked and junkies are thieving, scheming troublemakers. But banning their jollies hasn’t changed any of this. What they do is illegal and they still do it–in the case of the narcotic addict, simply giving them the drugs they want plus clean supplies for injection ends their stealing and severely reduces HIV/HCV transmission. As far as the other drugs go, were they legal, they would not be brewed in a bathtub or in a clandestine lab and have the kinds of impurities that wreak misery on them and (as is the case with heroin/opiate addicts) simply giving them their drugs ends the street crime that goes along with it. Most importantly (but generally unknown to non users), once the stigma of “criminal” is gone, the positive effect is two fold–people that want to seek treatment can do so without stigma and much more importantly, the badge of perverse honor that goes with being an outlaw/renegade dope fiend a la Charlie Parker, Keith Richards or Johnny Thunders is history. Junkies are resourceful, cunning people, but it’s no fun to be a junkie when all you do is go to a clinic, fix and nod out all day.

But because our Puritan roots suggest that all “bad behavior” (as if self-medicating is such a thing) can be stamped out with enough force, none of this will ever come to pass, I fear. It is (no pun intended) Johnny’s pipe dream. And I have no personal stake in this–I haven’t had a drink or rec. drug since Reagan was president, the USSR extant and indie rock any good. The binary thinking which leads to “drugs bad, must be eradicated” is what keeps the prison complex alive and well and the murderous Mexican drug cartels in business. Get rid of the “well-intentioned” laws and both disappear. However, my faith in the common sense of people died long before my sobriety was born, sad to say. 

 

 

Can’t a guy even smoke crack in peace any more?

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Okay: Yes, it’s really funny that the mayor of Toronto, who is an odd guy at best, was apparently caught on a cell-phone video sucking on a crack pipe. Insert jokes here. Go ahead.

It reminds me, since I’m very old, of the last crack-pipe mayor, Marion Barry, who in 1990 fell into an FBI sting when a former girlfriend invited him to her hotel room to have sex. Turns out she was an FBI informant, and when she suggested they get high before getting into bed, the fibbies caught Barry on a secret camera. Didn’t do much to harm his career — he served six months in jail and was soon re-elected mayor.

In Ford’s case, it’s hard to see how he’d even get arrested. I don’t know Canadian law, but a videotape of someone smoking out of a glass pipe isn’t legal evidence of cocaine posession (hey, it could have been medical marijuana). At this point, there really isn’t a crime. But already, there are calls for him to resign, and it’s going to be hard to put this behind him.

The interesting twist, though, is that the person who filmed him wasn’t a cop at all; it was someone else in the room, quite possibly a dealer, who was looking for a big cash score. Which could be coming — Gawker is trying to raise $200,000 to pay for the clip. (Yes, you can chip in and help crowd-fund the further embarassment of a politician!)

Now, it’s pretty likely that the person with the camera wasn’t a good-government crusader or an anti-drug type. What happened here, it appears, is someone who is either selling crack or smoking it with Hizzoner then gets into not-quite extortion or blackmail (though he might have called Ford before putting it out on the open market) but certainly a setup of another kind.

I’m not advocating that the mayor of Toronto (or anyone else) smoke crack. It’s nasty shit. But isn’t it just a tiny bit creepy that you can’t even sit in a crack den without worrying that you’re going to star in a Gawker video?

What if instead of smoking crack he’d been fucking a woman (or a guy) he wasn’t married to? Would Gawker raise $200,000 to see a mayor having consensual sex outside of Holy Matrimony? (Eeew, I don’t want to see Rob Ford having sex, but you get the point.)

I’m sorry, trolls, but I have to admit that (like pretty much everyone I know) I have done things in my life, in the privacy of my own or someone else’s home, that I don’t think should be public (crack smoking, for better or worse, not being one of them). Never hurt anyone, so it’s my fucking business. And it’s kind of creepy to think that anyone in the room could be filming me now, for all of posterity. 

From now on, folks, hide the crack pipe.

 

 

A boost for Ammiano’s pot bill

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Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s bill to create state regulations for pot clubs just got a boost: Although I disagree with the Supreme Court decision allowing towns to ban the dispensaries, it’s kicked local governments into gear. Now mayors from around the state are asking the Legislature to weigh in and craft “sensible marijuana policies.”

It’s tricky: The Department of Consumer Affairs, which might be the logical place for the regs, doesn’t want anything to do with pot, and Gov. Jerry Brown thinks we’re all too stoned to compete with China, so Ammiano’s looking to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to create a new marijuana division. Logically, that makes sense, and it’s what Colorado is doing. Practically, a lot of people don’t like the ABC, but that’s a factor of bad agency leadership and poor priorities. It’s not a structural problem. If we’re ultimately going to legalize pot altogether, and we are at some point soon, then it makes sense to have regs in place — or at least a system for regs in place — that can give cities and counties direction.

And it might help a little with the Reigning Asshole of Prohibition, Melinda Haag.

I suspect this will make it to the governor’s desk. I hope he comprehends that we aren’t going to compete with China if we can’t even solve a simple regulatory problem.

Also: Ammiano’s bill to protect transgender students made it off the Assembly floor.

Why are the feds cracking down on pot again?

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President Obama keeps saying that marijuana isn’t a big priority for his administration, and his rogue nutcase of a US Attorney in Northern California keeps making it a priority. Now the Drug Enforcement Administration, which also reports to the White House, is joining the action, going after licensed dispensaries in San Francisco and San Jose.

Maybe the feds are just trying to make sure everyone’s following the rules — except that the DEA has no jurisdiction over California law, and California laws says the dispensaries are just fine. So it’s hard to imagine that this is anything other than a heavy-handed attempt to drive more pot clubs out of business.

For what? For why? And why are our US Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, not making a stink about this?

Reports of grenade-type devices used in West Oakland raid

A high profile police raid occurred last night in multiple East Bay locations, with most activity centered at the Acorn public housing complex in West Oakland. According to recent news reports, some 150 FBI agents and support staff carried out the raid, along with 120 Oakland police officers and other law enforcement officers from San Leandro, Hayward and Antioch.

OPD Chief Howard Jordan told reporters at a press conference that the raid targeted the Acorn gang of West Oakland, and that officers made five arrests, served 16 narcotics and weapons warrants, and seized firearms, heroin, cocaine and marijuana.  

An official statement attributed to OPD spokesperson Johnna Watson in a Chronicle report suggested that police did not use force during the operation. This suggests OPD does not consider deploying grenade-type devices (considered to be “less lethal weapons”) to be “use of force,” because residents living nearby the Acorn housing complex at Eighth and Adeline streets told the Guardian that they heard loud bangs, probably from flash grenades, go off when the operation was underway around 7:30 Wednesday night.

A neighbor who lives nearby the apartment complex, who asked not to be identified, had a partial view of the police activity from their West Oakland residence. The person described the operation as “like a military presence” due to the sheer number of officers, many outfitted in SWAT gear, and “very precise,” targeting a specific address and lasting roughly an hour and 15 minutes. The streets surrounding the apartment complex were closed off for the duration of the raid.

The neighbor estimated that the flash grenades (or similar devices) were used five times, but since the explosions produce echoes, there could have been fewer deployments. The observer wasn’t able to see how they were used because there wasn’t a clear view of the unit, but heard the bangs in sequence. An OPD officer could be heard addressing occupants inside one of the units on a loudspeaker, reading out the address, telling them they were surrounded, and then saying something like, “you in the suit, get down, get down on the ground.”

The neighbor said they observed three people being removed from the unit and taken into custody – a man who was wearing a suit, a person in a motorized wheelchair, and a tall, younger-looking man. The arrestees were cooperative. 

The West Oakland resident also reported seeing an armored vehicle parked at the scene. A host of official OPD vehicles were parked along the street, along with unmarked cars including SUVs and white vans. 

More details about the massive police operation, the targeted gang, and the criminal activity the cops zeroed in on are sure to come out. A lot of outstanding questions remain, of course, including why officers decided to use the grenade-type devices. So far, OPD hasn’t responded to our email or voice message, but we’ll post the department’s response if we receive one.

Ammiano’s on a roll

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Willie Brown, the former mayor and current unregistered lobbyist, has been trying to undermine Assemblymember Tom Ammiano for years. But take a look at two Ammiano bills this spring and you get a sense of how effective San Francisco’s veteran representative can be.

On April 23, the state Assembly Judiciary Committee passed Ammiano’s Homeless Bill of Rights, 7-3. That wasn’t easy; he had to amend the bill and work the committee hard. The League of California Cities, which has a lot of clout in Sacto, doesn’t like the bill; neither does the California Chamber of Commerce. This is a big deal; the bill would ban most “sit-lie” laws and guarantee everyone the right to use public space.

Then the Pubilc Safety Committee approved his marijuana regulation bill, 5-2 (despite Brown and Co. trying to screw it up). And his Domestic Workers Bill of Rights , which the governor vetoed last year, is headed for likely approval at the Labor and Employment Committee.

There’s still a long road ahead for all of these bills — more committees, Assembly floor, Senate, and then the guv (and who the hell knows where Jerry will be on anything these days). But it’s possible that, in his final term, Ammiano could have several landmark bills approved.

(Yeah, it’s his final term. Six years is all you get in the Assembly. Crazy what terms limits has wrought. The minute you get to the point where you really know how to do your job, and you can truly deliver for your constitutents, they shove you out the door.)

 

Red-eyed trends: 420 fashion at Dolores Park

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For the really sloppy, you had to go to Hippie Hill. All in all, Dolores Park last Saturday looked pretty much the same as any other gloriously warm Saturday in San Francisco. Course, we love a theme.

“Rasta colors” made their appearance in smatterings, as did green pot leaves on tank tops and hella tie-dye. My favorite trend this year? Blankets covered with trays of cheesy bread and chimichangas. 

>>FOR MORE MARIJUANA MUSINGS, READ THIS WEEK’S STREET SEEN COLUMN

Betchu though, the Dolo kids didn’t leave the same amount of trash as the multitudes out in Golden Gate Park (to be fair, I wouldn’t spend too much cleaning up either if there had been a guitar-swinging brawl going down.)

You have to appreciate the coordinating stripes on these four. Props to goofy glasses for demonstrating that stoner pride need not entail ill-advised homage to another religious faith 

Blogger Broke Ass Stuart probably wasn’t even stoned — he’s just trying to hype his costume closet

Cute couple #1

Best of the Bay-winning entrepreneur Crista Hill of Hey Cookie! had the only un-medicated baked goods on the block

She gives me hope.

At this point things get a little unfocused. Here’s roaming foodie Rocky Yazzie (front) with his friend inna funny hat

“You gotta scream when you take a photo”

Simply majestic. 

I got sprung on these ladies’ snacks, then I noticed they looked amazing…

… but really, their snacks.

Cute couple #2, the best.