San Francisco

The feds raid San Francisco

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EDITORIAL On May 2, the day after thousands demonstrated for immigrant rights — exactly one month after Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Tom Ammiano stood in front of the cameras and announced a new initiative to promote the city’s sanctuary policy for undocumented residents — federal agents swept into the city and arrested workers at El Balazo restaurant as part of an immigration enforcement raid.

It was bitterly ironic: much of the excitement of the large May Day rallies in San Francisco came from the diversity of the crowds and the connections among labor, antiwar activists, and immigrant-rights groups. The raid reflects the ongoing disaster that is US immigration policy under President George W. Bush — arresting and deporting restaurant workers tears up families and communities, is a colossal waste of money, does nothing about the economic issues driving immigration, and damages the San Francisco and California economies. But it’s tough to get leading Democrats to take a strong stand on the issue: both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ducked tough immigration questions during the presidential campaign.

And while San Francisco’s Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, was against the fence and called it a "terrible idea," she hasn’t said a word in public about last week’s immigration raid in her home city. Neither has Sen. Dianne Feinstein or Sen. Barbara Boxer.

There’s only so much San Francisco can do to block the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The local sanctuary law bars city officials from in any way assisting ICE in apprehending undocumented immigrants, and Newsom and the Police Commission should direct Police Chief Heather Fong to investigate and ensure that there were no San Francisco law enforcement resources used, directly or indirectly, in the raid.

But local activists can do a lot to stop this insanity, using the sorts of political alliances we were encouraged to see forming at the May Day events. For starters, the antiwar, labor, and immigrant rights groups should call on Pelosi, Feinstein, and Boxer to denounce the raids and demand that ICE stop terrorizing California workers.

Small Business Awards 2008

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When Jean Dibble and I founded the Guardian in 1966, we came with the values of the Midwestern small business, the family farm, and the small-town community. We like to say that the Brugmann and Dibble families have been continuously in small business for more than l00 years.

My grandfather was the eighth child of a German immigrant farmer who homesteaded on 160 acres of prairie grass in northwest Iowa, near Spencer. He picked nearby Rock Rapids as the place to set up a general store-type drugstore, and he and my father spent their entire lives in the store, which was known throughout the territory as "Brugmann’s Drugs, where drugs and gold are fairly sold, since l902." I started in the store at age l2, selling peanuts and stamps.

My wife Jean’s family members were small-business people. Her father had lumberyards in Nebraska, and later a hardware store in Iowa.

Jean and I were delighted to find that San Francisco was a city rich in small, locally owned, independent businesses, and rich in a wide swath of neighborhoods bristling with distinctive small businesses, backed up by vigorous neighborhood small business associations.

Small business, we found, was the leading job generator in the city and the key player in building a sustainable local economy. After the l906 earthquake, it was the entrepreneurs and small businesses who lifted the city from the ashes. After the dot-com bust, it was the small-business community and vibrant neighborhoods that cushioned the blow. Today, it’s up to small business again.

And so the Guardian is pleased to salute the small-business community with our fourth annual Small Business Awards. We proudly announce our seven winners, who are each in their own way working to transform the city into a green, sustainable, local economy and pulling the city out of the recession.

They struggle valiantly against daunting odds to keep their business going, their neighborhoods lively, and San Francisco an incomparably great city. Let us salute them. (Bruce B. Brugmann)

Click below to read more about this year’s winners:

>>Small Green Business Award
Luscious Garage

>>Die-Hard Independent Award
Hazel’s Kitchen

>>Small Business Activist Award
Scott Hauge

>>Community Business Award
El Rio

>>Big Box Alternative Award
Cole Hardware

>>Chain Alternative Award
Books and Bookshelves

>Arthur Jackson Diversity in Business Award
WAGES

Summer 2008 fairs and festivals

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Grab your calendars, then get outside and celebrate summer in the Bay.

>Click here for a full-text version of this article.

ONGOING

United States of Asian America Arts Festival Various locations, SF; (415) 864-4120, www.apiculturalcenter.org. Through May 25. This festival, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, showcases Asian Pacific Islander dance, music, visual art, theater, and multidisciplinary performance ensembles at many San Francisco venues.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Third St at Mission, SF; (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct, free. Nearly 100 artistic and cultural events for all ages take place at the Gardens, including the Latin Jazz series and a performance by Rupa & the April Fishes.

MAY 10–31

Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St, Oakl; (510) 637-0462, www.oacc.cc. Times vary, free. The OACC presents hands-on activities for families, film screenings, cooking classes, and performances throughout the month of May.

MAY 15–18

Carmel Art Festival Devendorf Park, Carmel; (831) 642-2503, www.carmelartfestival.org. Call for times, free. Enjoy viewing works by more than 60 visual artists at this four-day festival. In addition to the Plein Air and Sculpture-in-the-Park events, the CAF is host to the Carmel Youth Art Show, Quick Draw, and Kids Art Day.

MAY 16–18

Oakland Greek Festival 4700 Lincoln, Oakl; (510) 531-3400, www.oaklandgreekfestival.com. Fri-Sat, 10am-11pm; Sun, 11am-9pm, $6. Let’s hear an "opa!" for Greek music, dance, food, and a stunning view at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension’s three-day festival.

MAY 17

Asian Heritage Street Celebration Japantown; www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. The largest gathering of Asian Pacific Americans in the nation features artists, DJs, martial arts, Asian pop culture, karaoke, and much more.

Saints Kiril and Methody Bulgarian Festival Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga; (510) 649-0941, www.slavonicweb.org. 4pm, $15. Enjoy live music, dance, and traditional food and wine in celebration of Bulgarian culture. A concert features special guests Radostina Koneva and Orchestra Ludi Maldi.

Taiwanese American Cultural Festival Union Square, SF; (408) 268-5637, www.tafnc.org. 11am-5pm, free. Explore Taiwan by tasting delicious Taiwanese delicacies, viewing a puppet show and other performances, and browsing arts and crafts exhibits.

Uncorked! Ghirardelli Square; 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, $40-45. Ghirardelli Square and nonprofit COPIA present their third annual wine festival, showcasing more than 40 local wineries and an array of gourmet food offerings.

BAY AREA

Cupertino Special Festival in the Park Cupertino Civic Center, 10300 Torre, Cupertino; (408) 996-0850, www.osfamilies.org. 10am-6pm, free. The Organization of Special Needs Families hosts its fourth annual festival for people of all walks or wheels of life. Featuring live music, food and beer, a petting zoo, arts and crafts, and other activities.

Enchanted Village Fair 1870 Salvador, Napa; (707) 252-5522. 11am-4pm, $1. Stone Bridge School creates a magical land of wonder and imagination, featuring games, crafts, a crystal room, and food.

Immigrants Day Festival Courthouse Square, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; (650) 299-0104, www.historysmc.org. 12-4pm, free. Sample traditional Mexican food, make papel picado decorations, and watch Aztec dancing group Casa de la Cultura Quetzalcoatl at the San Mateo County History Museum.

MAY 17–18

A La Carte and Art Castro St, Mountain View; (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. The official kick-off to festival season, A La Carte is a moveable feast of people and colorful tents offering two days of attractions, music, art, a farmers’ market, and street performers.

Bay Area Storytelling Festival Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area, El Sobrante; (510) 869-4946, www.bayareastorytelling.org. Gather around and listen to stories told by storytellers from around the world at this outdoor festival. Carol Birch, Derek Burrows, Baba Jamal Koram, and Olga Loya are featured.

Castroville Artichoke Festival 10100 Merritt, Castroville; (831) 633-2465, www.artichoke-festival.org. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $3-6. "Going Green and Global" is the theme of this year’s festival, which cooks up the vegetable in every way imaginable and features activities for kids, music, a parade, a farmers’ market, and much more.

French Flea Market Chateau Sonoma, 153 West Napa, Sonoma; (707) 935-8553, www.chateausonoma.com. Call for times and cost. Attention, Francophiles: this flea market is for you! Shop for antiques, garden furniture, and accessories from French importers.

Hats Off America Car Show Bollinger Canyon Rd and Camino Ramon, San Ramon; (925) 855-1950, www.hatsoffamerica.us. 10am-5pm, free. Hats Off America presents its fifth annual family event featuring muscle cars, classics and hot rods, art exhibits, children’s activities, live entertainment, a 10K run, and beer and wine.

Himalayan Fair Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 869-3995, www.himalayanfair.net. Sat, 10am-7pm; Sun, 10am-5:30pm, $8.This benefit for humanitarian grassroots projects in the Himalayas features award-winning dancers and musicians representing Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Mongolia. Check out the art and taste the delicious food.

Pixie Park Spring Fair Marin Art and Garden Center, Ross; www.pixiepark.org. 9am-4pm, free. The kids will love the bouncy houses, giant slide, petting zoo, pony rides, puppet shows, and more at this cooperative park designed for children under 6. Bring a book to donate to Homeward Bound of Marin.

Supercon San Jose Convention Center, San Jose; www.super-con.com. Sat., 10am-6pm; Sun., 10am-5pm, $20-30. The biggest stars of comics, sci-fi, and pop culture — including Lost’s Jorge Garcia and Groo writer Sergio Aragonés — descend on downtown San Jose for panels, discussions, displays, and presentations.

MAY 18

Bay to Breakers Begins at Howard and Spear, ends at the Great Highway along Ocean Beach, SF; www.baytobreakers.com. 8am, $39-59. See a gang of Elvis impersonators in running shorts and a gigantic balloon shaped like a tube of Crest floating above a crowd of scantily clad, and unclad, joggers at this annual "race" from the Embarcadero to the Pacific Ocean.

Carnival in the Xcelsior 125 Excelsior; 469-4739, my-sfcs.org/8.html. 11am-4pm, free. This benefit for the SF Community School features game booths, international food selections, prizes, music, and entertainment for all ages.

BAY AREA

Russian-American Fair Terman Middle School, 655 Arastradero, Palo Alto; (650) 852-3509, paloaltojcc.org. 10am-5pm, $3-5. The Palo Alto Jewish Community Center puts on this huge, colorful cultural extravaganza featuring ethnic food, entertainment, crafts and gift items, art exhibits, carnival games, and vodka tasting for adults.

MAY 21–JUNE 8

San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues, SF; (415) 399-9554, www.sfiaf.org. The theme for the fifth year of this multidisciplinary festival is "The Truth in Knowing/Threads in Time, Place, Culture."

MAY 22–25

Sonoma Jazz Plus Festival Field of Dreams, 179 First St W, Sonoma; (866) 527-8499, www.sonomajazz.org. Thurs-Sat, 6:30 and 9pm; Sun, 8:30pm, $40+. Head on up to California’s wine country to soak in the sounds of Al Green, Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall, and Bonnie Raitt.

MAY 24–25

Carnaval Mission District, SF; (415) 920-0125, www.carnavalsf.com. 9:30am-6pm, free. California’s largest annual multicultural parade and festival celebrates its 30th anniversary with food, crafts, activities, performances by artists like deSoL, and "Zona Verde," an outdoor eco-green village at 17th and Harrison.

MAY 25–26

San Ramon Art and Wind Festival Central Park, San Ramon; (925) 973-3200, www.artandwind.com. 10am-5pm, free. For its 18th year, the City of San Ramon Parks and Community Services Department presents over 200 arts and crafts booths, entertainment on three stages, kite-flying demos, and activities for kids.

MAY 30–JUNE 8

Healdsburg Jazz Festival Check Web site for ticket prices and venues in and around Healdsburg; (707) 433-4644, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.com. This 10th annual, week-and-a-half-long jazz festival will feature a range of artists from Fred Hersch and Bobby Hutcherson to the Cedar Walton Trio.

MAY 31

Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival North Shattuck, Berk; (510) 548-5335, www.northshattuck.org. 10am-6pm, free. Create chalk drawings and sample chocolate delights while vendors, musicians, and clowns entertain the family.

Napa Valley Art Festival 500 Main, Napa; www.napavalleyartfestival.com. 10am-4pm, free. Napa Valley celebrates representational art on Copia’s beautiful garden promenade with art sales, ice cream, and live music. Net proceeds benefit The Land Trust of Napa County’s Connolly Ranch Education Center.

MAY 31–JUNE 1

Union Street Festival Union, between Gough and Steiner, SF; 1-800-310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. For its 32nd anniversary, one of SF’s largest free art festivals is going green, featuring an organic farmer’s market, arts and crafts made with sustainable materials, eco-friendly exhibits, food, live entertainment, and bistro-style cafés.

JUNE 4–8

01SJ: Global Festival of Art on the Edge Various venues, San Jose; (408) 277-3111, ww.01sj.org. Various times. The nonprofit ZERO1 plans to host 20,000 visitors at this festival featuring 100 exhibiting artists exploring the digital age and novel creative expression.

JUNE 5–8

Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa; www.harmonyfestival.com. $30-99. One of the largest progressive-lifestyle festivals of its kind, Harmony brings art, education, and cultural awareness together with world-class performers like George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Jefferson Starship, Damian Marley, Cheb I Sabbah, and Vau de Vire Society.

JUNE 7–8

Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center; 383-7837, www.crystalfair.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm, $6. The Pacific Crystal Guild presents two days in celebration of crystals, minerals, jewelry, and metaphysical healing tools from an international selection of vendors.

BAY AREA

Sunset Celebration Weekend Sunset headquarters, 80 Willow Road, Menlo Park; 1-800-786-7375, www.sunset.com. 10am-5pm, $12, kids free. Sunset magazine presents a two-day outdoor festival featuring beer, wine, and food tasting; test-kitchen tours, celebrity chef demonstrations, live music, seminars, and more.

JUNE 8

Haight Ashbury Street Fair Haight and Ashbury; www.haightashburystreetfair.org. 11am-5:30pm, free. Celebrate the cultural contributions this historical district has made to SF with a one-day street fair featuring artisans, musicians, artists, and performers.

JUNE 14

Rock Art by the Bay Fort Mason, SF; www.trps.org. 10am-5pm, free. The Rock Poster Society hosts this event celebrating poster art from its origins to its most recent incarnations.

BAY AREA

City of Oakland Housing Fair Frank Ogawa Plaza; Oakl; (510) 238-3909, www.oaklandnet.com/housingfair. 10am-2pm, free. The City of Oakland presents this seventh annual event featuring workshops and resources for first-time homebuyers, renters, landlords, and homeowners.

JUNE 14–15

North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, 1200-1500 blocks of Grant and adjacent streets; 989-2220, www.sfnorthbeach.org. 10am-6pm, free. Touted as the country’s original outdoor arts and crafts festival, the North Beach Festival celebrates its 54th anniversary with juried arts and crafts exhibitions and sales, a celebrity pizza toss, live entertainment stages, a cooking stage with celebrity chefs, Assisi animal blessings, Arte di Gesso (Italian street chalk art competition, 1500 block Stockton), indoor Classical Concerts (4 pm, National Shrine of St. Francis), a poetry stage, and more.

BAY AREA

Sonoma Lavender Festival 8537 Sonoma Hwy, Kenwood; (707) 523-4411, www.sonomalavender.com. 10am-4pm, free. Sonoma Lavender opens its private farm to the public for craftmaking, lavender-infused culinary delights by Chef Richard Harper, tea time, and a chance to shop for one of Sonoma’s 300 fragrant products.

JUNE 7–AUG 17

Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove, 19th Ave and Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sundays 2pm, free. This beloved San Francisco festival celebrates community, nature, and the arts is in its with its 71st year of admission-free concerts.

JUNE 17–20

Mission Creek Music Festival Venues and times vary; www.mcmf.org.The Mission Creek Music Festival celebrates twelve years of featuring the best and brightest local independent musicians and artists with this year’s events in venues big and small.

JUNE 20–22

Jewish Vintners Celebration Various locations, Napa Valley; (707) 968-9944, www.jewishvintners.org. Various times, $650. The third annual L’Chaim Napa Valley Jewish Vintners Celebration celebrates the theme "Connecting with Our Roots" with a weekend of wine, cuisine, camaraderie, and history featuring Jewish winemakers from Napa, Sonoma, and Israel.

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14480 Hwy 128, Boonville; (917) 777-5550, www.snwmf.com.Three-day pass, $135; camping, $50-100. Camp for three days and listen to the international sounds of Michael Franti & Spearhead, the English Beat, Yami Bolo, and many more.

JUNE 28–29

San Francisco Pride 2008 Civic Center, Larkin between Grove and McAllister; 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Celebration Sat-Sun, noon-6pm; parade Sun, 10:30am, free. A month of queer-empowering events culminates in this weekend celebration: a massive party with two days of music, food, and dancing that continues to boost San Francisco’s rep as a gay mecca. This year’s theme is "Bound for Equality."

JULY 3–6

High Sierra Music Festival Plumas-Sierra Fairgrounds, Quincy; (510) 547-1992, www.highsierramusic.com. Ticket prices vary. Enjoy four days of camping, stellar live music, yoga, shopping, and more at the 18th iteration of this beloved festival. This year’s highlights include ALO, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Built to Spill, Bob Weir & RatDog, Gov’t Mule, and Railroad Earth.

JULY 4

City of San Francisco Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero at Beach; 705-5500, www.pier39.com. 1-9:30pm, free. SF’s waterfront Independence Day celebration features live music by Big Bang Beat and Tainted Love, kids’ activities, and an exciting fireworks show.

JULY 5–6

Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy; www.fillmorejazzfestival.com.10am-6pm, free. More than 90,000 people will gather to celebrate Fillmore Street’s prosperous tradition of jazz, culture, and cuisine.

JULY 17–AUG 3

Midsummer Mozart Festival Various Bay Area venues; (415) 392-4400, www.midsummermozart.org. $20-60. This Mozart-only music concert series in its 34th season features talented musicians from SF and beyond.

JULY 18–AUG 8

Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso, Atherton; www.musicatmenlo.org. In its sixth season, this festival explores a musical journey through time, from Bach to Jennifer Higdon.

JULY 21–27

North Beach Jazz Fest Various locations; www.nbjazzfest.com. Various times and ticket prices. Sunset Productions presents the 15th annual gathering celebrating indoor and outdoor jazz by over 100 local and international artists. Special programs include free jazz in Washington Square Park.

JULY 26, AUG 16

FLAX Creative Arts Festival 1699 Market; 552-2355, www.flaxart.com. 11am-2pm, free. Flax Art and Design hosts an afternoon of hands-on demonstrations, free samples, and prizes for kids.

JULY 27

Up Your Alley Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard, Folsom between Ninth and 10th Sts; www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, free. Hundreds of naughty and nice leather-lovers sport their stuff in SoMa at this precursor to the Folsom Street Fair.

AUG 2–3

Aloha Festival San Francisco Presidio Parade Grounds, near Lincoln at Graham; www.pica-org.org/AlohaFest/index.html. 10am-5pm, free. The Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association presents its annual Polynesian cultural festival featuring music, dance, arts, crafts, island cuisine, exhibits, and more.

AUG 9–10

Nihonmachi Street Fair Japantown Center, Post and Webster; www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Japantown’s 35th annual celebration of the Bay Area’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities continues this year with educational booths and programs, local musicians and entertainers, exhibits, and artisans.

AUG 22–24

Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival Golden Gate Park; www.outsidelands.com. View Web site for times and price. Don’t miss the inaugural multifaceted festival of top-notch music, including Tom Petty, Jack Johnson, Manu Chao, Widespread Panic, Wilco, and Primus.

AUG 25–SEPT 1

Burning Man Black Rock City, NV; www.burningman.com. $295. Celebrate the theme "American Dream" at this weeklong participatory campout that started in the Bay Area. No tickets will be sold at the gate this year.

AUG 29–SEPT 1

Sausalito Art Festival 2400 Bridgeway, Sausalito; (415) 331-3757, www.sausalitoartfestival.org. Various times, $10. Spend Labor Day weekend enjoying the best local, national, and international artists as they display paintings, sculpture, ceramics, and more in this seaside village.

AUG 30–31

Millbrae Art and Wine Festival Broadway between Victoria and Meadow Glen, Millbrae; (650) 697-7324, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-5pm, free. The "Big Easy" comes to Millbrae for this huge Mardi Gras–style celebration featuring R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and soul music, as well as arts and crafts, food and beverages, live performance, and activities for kids.

AUG 30–SEPT 1

Art and Soul Festival Various venues, Oakl; (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. 11am-6pm, $5-$10. Enjoy three days of culturally diverse music, food, and art at the eighth annual Comcast Art and Soul Festival, which features a Family Fun Zone and an expo highlighting local food and wine producers.

SEPT 1–5

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival Various Bay Area locations; www.sfshakes.org. This nonprofit organization presents free Shakespeare in the Park, brings performances to schools, hosts theater camps, and more.

SEPT 6–7

Mountain View Art and Wine Festival Castro between El Camino Real and Evelyn, Mountain View; (650) 968-8378, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Known as one of America’s finest art festivals, more than 200,000 arts lovers gather in Silicon Valley’s epicenter for this vibrant celebration featuring art, music, and a Kids’ Park.

SEPT 20–21

Treasure Island Music Festival Treasure Island; treasureislandfestival.com. The second year of this two-day celebration, organized by the creators of Noise Pop, promises an impressive selection of indie, rock, and hip-hop artists.

SEPT 28

Folsom Street Fair Folsom Street; www.folsomstreetfair.com. Eight days of Leather Pride Week finishes up with the 25th anniversary of this famous and fun fair.

Listings compiled by Molly Freedenberg.

Pizza Place on Noriega

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› paulr@sfbg.com

Surfer dudes are people too, and they get hungry just like the rest of us. Surprisingly, San Francisco has such dudes; unsurprisingly, they tend to cluster at the city’s western edge, a land whose great highway is the Great Highway. Just beyond the Great Highway is the beach, pounded by surf, and surfer dudes (of any and all sexes) love the surf. Fog? This is irrelevant. Surfers have other issues to contend with, such as great whites.

The far Sunset District has its mild and fogless days, anyway — a blessing for those of us who sometimes bumble in from more sheltered corners of town, expecting the worst and swaddled in woolens — and the prosaically named Pizza Place on Noriega has been laid out with such beatific weather in mind. Although the restaurant’s glassy face peers north, its huge windows (including transoms) are filled with the light of the westering sun on spring evenings, and the woody interior (rather ski-lodgey, I thought) glows at this golden hour. Of course it rains in the Sunset too, and is foggy, and in these abysmal conditions we would have to trust to the warmth and perfume of the pizza oven, which dominates the unconcealed kitchen in its far corner of the double-width storefront space.

In my increasingly remote youth, pizza meant a visit to Shakey’s, whose amusements included a player piano. PPoN doesn’t have a player piano, but it does seem to attract small children — evidence that the city’s baby belt now extends well beyond Noe Valley. Despite the abundance of little ones, the restaurant doesn’t offer a kiddie menu; the tone throughout, in fact, seems pitched for young adults, from the jokey sign (courtesy of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer) just inside the front door — "I only eat pizza on days that end in ‘Y’" — to the huge cardboard profile of a Chevy Caprice mounted on the rear wall, with spinning tires that happen to be pepperoni pizzas.

Pabst is available on tap, which isn’t something you see too often out here, as opposed to in Milwaukee. And while the menu doesn’t offer pepperoni pizza per se, such a pie can be created from the list of DIY toppings. Pepperoni does turn up as a member of the ensemble in several of the house specialty pies, among them the Dimitri (with sausage, garlic, and mushrooms) and the Meathead (with sausage, salami, ham, and red onion).

We, however, could not resist the Spicoli ($15.99 for a 14-incher), topped with sausage and double cheese and named for — no, not an obscure pasta shape or a type of cured pork, but Jeff Spicoli, king of the surfer dudes and high priest of stoned slackerdom, as brilliantly depicted by Sean Penn in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The Spicoli is the simple declarative sentence of pizzadom: a nicely crisp crust that’s a bit thicker than vogue, plenty of fennel-scented sausage chunks, and a lava flow of melted cheese. I love cheese as a birthright and hesitate to say that there can be such a thing as too much of it. But, post-Spicoli, I wonder.

The kitchen also turns out some interesting side dishes, including cauliflower florets ($5) roasted with black olives, orange zest, chili flakes, and parsley for a real Mediterranean, even Sicilian, flair. Then there are the sweet potato steak fries ($7), their faint sweetness resembling the fried yucca root you sometimes find in Brazilian restaurants. To broaden their appeal, PPoN presents the fries with little cups of blue cheese dressing and buffalo sauce (tomato-based and sweet-hot, though more hot than sweet), along with piles of baby carrots and celery stalks. A family of dunkables.

And since even pizzas less cheesy than the mighty Spicoli can be overwhelming, the midday snacker can find an attractive array of sandwiches to choose from. These are called grinders and are available from noon until four in the afternoon. Perhaps their best characteristic is the bread they’re served on: torpedo-shaped, wonderfully soft rolls from Amoroso Bakery in Philadelphia.

The rolls are like focaccia rolls except not olive-oily. They’re also discreetly absorbent, an important consideration if one’s grinder is the housemade meatball version ($6.50). The meatballs themselves are veal-inflected, to judge by their subtle texture, and they’re bathed in plenty of tomato sauce, which could easily get all over everything but doesn’t because most of it settles into the bread. Some melted provolone provides an additional seal.

More complex is the uncomplex-sounding roast turkey grinder ($6.25). Plenty of meat here, along with mayo, mustard, and provolone — but also a puckery zing provided by slivers of red onion and chunks of pepperoncini. We’re a long way from sandwiches made from Thanksgiving leftovers.

As for the crowd: surfer-dudish, though a little older than Jeff Spicoli, and no sign of Sean Penn, but plenty of the aforementioned kids, dangling like chimps from chairs and the edges of tables. The surfer-dude community has discovered family values, apparently.

The pizzeria is just about a year old: a whippersnapper with sharp new wood flooring and, over the roof, a tell-tale curvy exhaust flue, in a faded part of town. It’s not yet the equal of the Richmond’s Pizzetta 211 and maybe it doesn’t mean to be. But friends and acquaintances of mine who live in the western Sunset (some surfer dudes, some regular dudes) are certainly eager for renewal in the restaurant scene — if not fast times, at least ambulatory ones.

PIZZA PLACE ON NORIEGA

Wed.–Thurs., Sun.–Mon., noon–10 p.m.

Fri.–Sat., noon–10:30 p.m.

3901 Noriega, SF

(415) 759-5752, www.pizzaplacesf.com

Beer and wine

MC/V

Cheerfully noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Small Business Awards 2008: Arthur Jackson Diversity in Business Award

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Before it was cool or mainstream for businesses to go green, the nonprofit WAGES (Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security) was successfully promoting eco-friendly house cleaning cooperatives to empower low-income workers.

That they’ve been doing it successfully since 1997 testifies to the idea that promoting workers’ rights and creating an environmentally sustainable business is possible.

Based in Oakland, the small WAGES staff helps low-income women form worker-owned cleaning cooperatives by offering leadership training, education, and management until the cooperatives can become self-sustaining. So far three of the cooperatives operate in the Bay Area, and a fourth is slated to open in San Francisco by the end of the year.

WAGES members reap the benefits.

All three of the Bay Area cooperatives cover health insurance for all their workers and deliver a competitive wage between 50 to 100 percent higher than what the workers originally made. Since WAGES workers co-own their business, their household incomes have increased significantly.

To get there, WAGES uses a highly empowering model in which workers are encouraged to fundraise before they sign on to start their co-op in order to offset some of the small business loans. They also have to attend leadership and business training classes with WAGES staff for several months.

Only then can these women, mostly Latina, fully reap the financial and health benefits of their business. Under WAGES’ eco-friendly policy, the co-ops use only nontoxic alternatives to standard chemical solutions such as baking soda, vinegar, and dishwashing soap diluted with water.

In a low-wage job where workers suffer indignities and often get little respect, the women who founded the three Bay Area co-ops to date came to environmentalism from a different route than the more privileged among us. For these women, who often cleaned four to five homes a day, the constant exposure to commercial cleaners led to rashes, headaches, asthma, and memory loss, among other side effects. The majority of those symptoms have mostly abated under WAGES eco-friendly business model, said Hilary Abell, WAGES executive director. Abell hopes WAGES can saturate the Bay Area market, giving needed jobs to scores of new workers.

Spanish-speaking volunteers and donations are always welcome.

WAGES

2647 International Blvd., no.205, Oakl.

(510) 532-5465

www.wagescooperatives.org

Dandelion Dancetheater

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PREVIEW The San Francisco Ballet closes its season this week, but Bay Area dance keeps pulsing. Across town in the Mission’s modest CELLspace, Dandelion Dancetheater is starting its own rather remarkable program of new dance. The two-week run — which heads to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for the third week — features the company’s own performers plus guest artists from Montreal and Madrid. Collectively these performers and choreographers call what they are doing "physically integrated dance," the moniker folks who have long been expanding the concept of who is a dancer seem finally to have settled on. It’s a movement pioneered by Oakland’s AXIS Dance Company, so it should be no surprise that these programs draw heavily on former AXIS dancers Jacques Poulin-Denis, who has returned to Canada, and Nadia Adame, who has gone back to Spain. Eric Kupers, Dandelion’s codirector and a former AXIS collaborator, initially became interested in working with nontraditional dancing bodies for the challenges it poses to his own creativity. Kupers has investigated ideas of identity, body image, beauty, intimacy, loneliness, ability, and disability. In The Undressed Project series (2002 to present), he asked his very diverse group of dancers to perform in the nude, challenging their vulnerability and our willingness to look. In his Physically Integrated Dance Program at California State University-East Bay, he works with performers with emotional and physical challenges. They will perform in one program with his newest company dancer, a young man with a learning disability. Kupers’ work-in-progress, oust, and Adame’s 9 días y 20 horas a la deriva look at issues of displacement, particularly surrounding immigration. Poulin-Denis, with Mayday Dance, will bring Les Angles Morts (2007), while his DORS investigates sleeplessness.

Dandelion Dancetheater Fri/9-S0un/18, 7 (Program A) and 8:30 p.m. (Program B), CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, SF. $10–$20. (510) 885-3154, www.brownpapertickets.com

Small Business Awards 2008: Die-Hard Independent Award

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One day last August I was standing in line at my favorite local sandwich shop, Hazel’s Kitchen, chatting about boats with a guy I’d seen around the Potrero neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the owner, Leslie Goldberg, overheard our conversation while she prepped my sandwich. She asked if I was a sailor and I confirmed that yes, before wrestling deadlines at the Guardian, I hauled lines as a deckhand. I told her I missed sea life and was thinking about getting in on some local yacht club action. "If you know any hot single sailors, send them my way," I joked.

"Actually, I do," she said, smiling wryly.

This is how I met Brian and learned that a handful of happy couples in the neighborhood can testify to Goldberg’s sixth sense for matchmaking.

But the talent most patrons see is sandwich-making. Wholesome, grab-and-go comfort food is the theme of Hazel’s lunch and catering menus. Homey standards like mac and cheese and minestrone soup mingle with sandwiches of turkey and cranberries or roast beef with horseradish.

Goldberg, a Pennsylvania native, opened the sandwich shop 16 years ago with a $10,000 seed grant from another Potrero local she calls her guardian angel. The standing-room only shop serves fresh salads, soups, and sandwiches with ingredients sourced from family-owned local distributors. Produce hails from Marin Organics and the to-go containers are compostable, a move that cut her garbage bill in half.

The shop’s not named after a distant relative, but the wife of Farley, the namesake of the café next door. To Goldberg, a single mother who lived and raised her 12-year-old twins, Emma and Jake, in the apartment upstairs, being a part of the neighborhood is what it’s all about. "Every merchant, every neighbor, helped take care of my kids with me."

When asked about the challenges of being a small business in San Francisco, she immediately cites big-business competition. "When Whole Foods came it was the first time I saw such a drastic change in business," she said. She checked out the grocery chain’s new Potrero location shortly after it opened and was blown away. "Whatever you wanted, they had and it was done beautifully. No one can compete with that."

So how does Hazel’s keep up? Goldberg says the magic ingredient is service. "That’s what I do. It’s my pleasure. When people walk into Hazel’s I want them to smile and feel good."

Perhaps that’s why a couple of months after the Whole Foods grand opening she saw her business go back to normal. "What a small business really has is service and community. Those are two things Whole Foods can’t give people."

I bet it’s hard to order up hot, single sailors there too. (Amanda Witherell)

HAZEL’S KITCHEN

1319 18th St., SF

(415) 647-7941

Small Business Awards 2008: Small Business Activist Award

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Scott Hauge is the Scarlet Pimpernel of the small business community. He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere.

Hauge’s day job is president and owner of CAL Insurance & Associates, a company that specializes in providing insurance for small to medium-size businesses. But his real job is operating as a classic San Francisco activist, representing small business on local, state, and national levels almost every day. Hauge is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable and effective small-business leaders in the country, and last year was named the National Small Business Association’s Advocate of the Year.

Hauge is a fourth-generation San Franciscan whose great-grandfather was in the Fire Department, fought the l906 fire, and later died fighting another San Francisco fire. His grandfather was a cable car grip. His parents met in the San Francisco Public Library. His father took over CAL Insurance in 1960, and Hauge came into the firm in the early l970s after an activist student life at Washington State University at Pullman. He wrote a thesis on Karl Marx, and was a leader in the student movement whose anti-Vietnam War protests closed down the university two years in a row.

Hauge became politically active in San Francisco shortly after he joined CAL Insurance. He was a major force in the battle in the mid-l980s to establish a Small Business Commission, the first in the country, and served as its first commissioner.

He has introduced government legislation on behalf of small business in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Washington, DC. He is currently a member of more than 20 boards and commissions in San Francisco and California.

He founded Small Business Advocates, a local advocacy group, and Small Business California, a statewide advocacy group, and was a leading advocate during last year’s successful campaign for a Small Business Advisory Center, a City Hall agency helping small businesses with permits and navigating the city’s bureaucracy.

A lot of City Hall progressives consider Hauge a conservative, but his Small Business California organization is considered the most liberal small business group in the state.

He’s a Democrat, and cornered Hillary Clinton early on in the presidential campaign and tried to get her to put small business issues on her agenda. So far, he reports, no luck.

Hauge likes to say his proudest activity is serving as vice chair of the Volunteers in Medicine program. The program has 6l clinics around the country that recruit retired physicians, nurses, and dentists as volunteers to provide health services to the working uninsured. Next stop: San Francisco.

Hauge maintains that San Francisco is the only city in the country that has the infrastructure — with the city’s Small Business Commission and the new assistance center — to really help small business.

"Now we just have to get City Hall to pay attention."

SCOTT HAUGE

CAL Insurance & Assoc., Inc

2311 Taraval, SF

(415) 680-2109

Small Business Awards 2008: Big Box Alternative Award

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Rick Karp’s parents bought the first Cole Hardware at the corner of Cole and Parnassus streets in 1961. Today the family business is still independent, but it now has four city locations.

"I told my wife I’d give it five years," Karp said with amusement, reflecting on how he’s worked in hardware ever since he started helping out after school at age 12 before making it his full-time career in 1975.

After 40-plus years, Cole Hardware has 95 employees and is "green certified" by the San Francisco Department of the Environment. The stores carry earth-friendly products, denoted by a green sticker, so customers can make an informed decision about the products they buy. Each location also uses sustainable, low-energy, and renewable resources in a commitment to taking a green path as a business.

"It’s trying to walk what we talk," Karp said.

On top of its environmental practices, Cole Hardware is an example of local industry successfully fighting big-box store invasion. A few years ago, Karp was active in community efforts to prevent Home Depot from opening on Bayshore Blvd., going so far as to put up money for a legal challenge to the project. He noted that this was a particularly prudent issue for him given the nature of his business — but he didn’t act solely for himself. "The important thing for me is to keep big-box retail out of San Francisco," he said.

Around 1970, Karp joined ACE, a buying cooperative with approximately 4,500 stores worldwide, as a response to such big-box invasions. Membership allows small business owners to buy at high-volume prices and use the savings to provide benefits and fair wages to employees.

"I would typify them as the savior of mainstream America," Karp said, referring to ACE. "You won’t see the demise of the hardware store because of chain stores."

Some thanks need to go to Karp of Cole Hardware for that as well.

COLE HARDWARE

956 Cole, SF

(415) 753-2653

3312 Mission, SF

(415) 647-8700

70 Fourth St, SF

(415) 777-4453

2254 Polk, SF

(415) 674-8913

www.colehardware.com

Small Business Awards 2008: Chain Alternative Award

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If there was ever a metaphor for San Francisco’s growing income divide, it might be its furniture market: a sea of IKEA particleboard and Craigslist castoffs swirling around islands of Danish modern and high-end boutiques.

Books and Bookshelves, a small shop on the corner of Sanchez and 14th streets owned by the husband/wife duo David and Gade Highsmith, provides some much-needed middle ground while filling two niches: affordable, solid wood bookshelves and poetry.

The simplicity of this pairing matches the no-frills feel of Books and Bookshelves’ Sanchez Street storefront. Fancy it’s not: white walls and high ceilings surround the rows of bare bookshelves crowding the aisles. A small collection of books hides in the back.

Customizing — whether it’s choosing a varnish color or commissioning a specially built shelf — is what gives Books and Bookshelves a competitive edge over chain outlets. David Highsmith estimates that half his business is custom work — from doghouses to specialized shelving — made at one of the store’s two local workshops or by someone from a network of independent woodworkers and other manufacturers Books and Bookshelves contracts with. Highsmith says they attempt to buy green or locally sourced materials whenever possible while striving to keep costs low.

Prices manage to keep pace with the big chains as well. Basic bookshelves run between $100 and $200 unfinished; larger, fancier pieces run from $500 on up. A custom paint or varnish job adds 40 to 60 percent to the cost, but customers can do their own finishing for about $30 in supplies.

The gem of the store for browsers is the poetry section, full of chapbooks with silkscreen or letterpress covers that most bookstores no longer bother to carry. Occasionally the Highsmiths host in-store readings with local poets. More than just cute, Books and Bookshelves’ commitment to selling books — clearly not the most profitable part of the operation — gives the place a true sense of character and reflects a commitment to something greater than the bottom line.

BOOKS AND BOOKSHELVES

99 Sanchez, SF

(415) 621-3761

www.99sanchez.com

How many San Franciscans are there?

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The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were about 765,000 people living in San Francisco last year, down from about 777,000 in 2000. But a pro business non-profit group called Social Compact came out with a study a few months ago that claims our population is closer to 865,000 — and that we’re wealthier than official estimates because of our underground economy and other factors — so Mayor Gavin Newsom has announced that he’s challenging the Census figures to try to get us some more money.

“Every San Franciscan counts, and I am serious about ensuring San Francisco receives our fair share of federal
and state funding and attention,” Newsom said in a press release that went out less than an hour ago. “We can use this new data to attract high quality retailers to our under-served markets and make sure we develop the neighborhoods that have been unfairly under-counted.”

Erin Brockovich hits Lennar in South Carolina

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Seems that Erin Brockovich is testing levels of methane and hazardous chemicals at a Lennar housing complex in South Carolina. The EPA previously tested the site and claimed all was well, but Brockovich is challenging those results. Hardly the kind of sound bite that Lennar’s well-financed Prop. G supporters in San Francisco were hoping for.

Peaker Plan moving forward

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Early Monday morning about a hundred citizens gathered in front of City Hall to protest the construction of two natural gas-burning “peaker” power plants in the city — one at the airport and one in the Bayview/Portero district. Representatives opposed to the plan, from a coalition of 20 different environmental and social justice organizations, articulated in so many ways that San Francisco should be moving toward green energy and away from fossil fuels.

Then the crowd, about 100 strong, filed inside to speak their minds about it at a Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing — last stop for the plan before it heads to the full Board of Supervisors. But 10 hours later, only a handful of people were still in the room when the chance to speak was finally given.

The insanely long hearing had a loaded agenda, with topics ranging from funding the airport to defunding Edgewood foster care center, not to mention six separate bits of legislation related to the peaker power plants. The public comment requests were piled high and proceedings slammed to a halt during Item #5 when Stephanie Gates, a rep for Edgewood, fainted to the floor in the middle of her testimony about foster care in San Francisco.

It was well into the evening and most of the audience had left for home or work by the time talk finally turned to the peakers.

Pics: Protest at the ICE

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Photos and text by Ariel Soto

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At the San Francisco Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office an emergency protest and a call for justice was held on May 5th in a response to condemn last week’s raids where 60 immigrant workers were detained by the ICE. People gathered at the protest to call an end to these raids that tear apart families and criminalize the important work immigrants are doing in the community. Of the 60 workers who were arrested, some have been released, but must wear an electric ankle bracelet while they wait for deportation hearings. “Estamos aquí y no nos vamos” (“We are here and we’re not leaving”) was one of the many slogans chanted by the passionate and diverse group of protesters at the event.

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Participating organizations included: East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, Bay Area Immigrant Right Coalition, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Pride at Work, and San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network.

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Tipping your waiter health coverage

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Here’s another example of a restaurant passing on the cost of Healthy San Francisco to its patrons. The lady and I had brunch at the Slow Club in the Mission on Saturday and this is our bill. Healthy San Francisco is the program created by Sup. Tom Ammiano to reach the more than 73,000 uninsured San Franciscans with a reasonably inexpensive form of health insurance.

The program is tied up in federal court right now because restaurants have sued arguing that it’s illegal for local governments to require employers to fund health insurance for their employees, which Healthy San Francisco does. About 19,000 San Franciscans had already signed up for the plan by last week and on Wednesday about 13,000 more were added as local businesses met a deadline for registering with the program.

Part of the idea is that without insuring more Americans, you and I pay for it each time someone who lacks coverage ends up making a costly emergency room visit at a public hospital with a preventable disease, illness or injury because they couldn’t access advance treatment, mental health assistance or any other type of care before they reached a tipping point. This program might actually prove that if the government extends coverage to more people who haven’t traditionally received it, we may all save money in the end.

For now, you’re stuck with the bill while the restaurant industry sues to ignore the true cost of our robust local economy.

How Weird, hell yeah!

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Photo by mvgals.net
How Weird Street Faire is the best annual party in San Francisco, bar none, particularly on days like this Sunday when the sun is scheduled to shine brightly. I’ll be among thousands of people dancing my ass off to some of this city’s best DJs and generally mixing it up in a way that I’ll probably regret on Monday, particularly with the plethora of cool after parties around the epicenter of Howard and 2nd streets. The fair shuts down at 6 p.m., an unfortunate cut-off that the city first imposed last year, so get there around noon-ish and don’t forget the sunscreen.
DJs lineups on the flip…

ICE raids San Francisco restaurants

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We’re receiving early reports from the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition that federal immigration officials have raided restaurants around the Bay Area and are arresting undocumented workers including in the Haight. So much for our sanctuary city “awareness campaign” that San Francisco launched in April. Limited details below.

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*ENGLISH VERSION*
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, May 02, 2008

Contact:
Evelyn Sánchez, (415) 572-0639, evelyn@immigrantrights.org
Larisa Casillas, (415) 640-4557, larisa@immigrantrights.org

ICE Unleashes Immigration Sweeps Against Bay Area Restaurant Workers, Arrests Dozens of Workers
Coalition Urges People to Call Hotline to Get Legal Help

We are calling on members of the Bay Area community to be alert to an immigration police presence in your neighborhoods or workplaces. Today, the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition started receiving reports of immigration police raids, carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE arrested dozens of restaurant workers in El Balazo restaurants in San Ramon, Lafayette, Concord, Pleasanton, San Francisco and Danville. ICE arrests were also reported in Oakland. The numbers of workers detained, which cities, and if only EL Balazo restaurants were targeted have not yet been fully confirmed. Please report the names of any individuals, your co-workers, neighbors and others, who may have been picked up by ICE to BAIRC.

More on the raids including who to contact for help and a Spanish translation of the presser after the jump.

Flash: Is Stockton ousting PG@E?

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Joe Neilands flashed the news late Friday afternoon. The City of Stockton may be moving to kick PG@E out of town.

Neilands broke the PG@E/Raker Act scandal wide open with an expose in the Guardian in l969 and started the long battle to kick PG@E out of City Hall and out of San Francisco.

Sure enough, Joe was on target again. The Stockton Record carried the story on Wednesday (April 30) with a strong headline: “PG@E Sued by Stockton, City Pursues Ruling to Aid Possible Power Takeover.” The story, by David Siders,
reported that the city sued “its century-old power provider Tuesday and requested “that a court rule Stockton has the right to oust Pacific Gas & Electric Company and to take over the local electricity market–even before the city decides if it ought to.

“A ruling in the city’s favor would reinforce its position that PG@E is contractually obligated to sell–agreeing to do so in its franchise agreement in l954–and would undermine PG@E’s claim that a takeover would be hostile and that its assets are not for sale.”

Mayor Ed Chavez had called for a takeover bid in his State of the City address in February. The story quoted him as saying that a takeover would cut rates and generate millions of dollars in revenue. A preliminary estimate found that it could cost Stockton $368 million to buy PG@E’s assets but that the market is so profitable the city could recover that cost and save $8 million more annually, according to the Record.

Hey, Mayor Newsom and all the PUC and other City Hall officials are scared to death of PG@E. Listen up. If Stockton can take on PG@E, why can’t San Francisco take on PG@E? After all, San Francisco is the only city in the U.S. that is required by federal law to have a public power system (because the Raker Act of l913 allowed the city to build the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park for its water supply, on condition the city residents get cheap Hetch Hetchy public power.) The city got the water but it never got the electricity because of PG@E muscle and City Hall cowardice and so PG@E stands to this day as an illegal private utility in San Francisco. (See Guardian stories and editorials since l969 and the Neilands story.)

Well, it’s good to see Joe still on the story after all these years. But, as I always tell him jokingly, “Joe, with a little more seasoning, you may be ready to cover City Hall in San Francisco.”

Click here to read the Recordnet.com story PG&E sued by Stockton: City pursues ruling to aid possible power takeover and check out the story links for the background.

Regulating marijuana slooooooooooowly

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San Francisco blazed a new trail back in 2005 when the Board of Supervisors approved comprehensive regulations governing the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries, which numbered more than 40 back then. Fast forward to 2008 and not much has changed, with the 33 club operators and city officials still struggling to get these places permitted. On Tuesday, the board will consider a third delay of the deadline, pushing it back to Jan. 19, 2009 which, not coincidentally, is the day after the inauguration of a new U.S. president.

What’s the problem? Well, according to my sources and a recent Chron piece, the clubs are facing a confluence of difficulties. Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier’s insistence that clubs meet the highest standards of access for those with disabilities has caused club operators to have to develop detailed applications which are then reviewed by the Mayor’s Office of Disabilities, which wasn’t given any new staff or resources for this new role. And then when club operators are forced to make improvements, to get the building permits they need approval from their landlords, which are freaked out these days after receiving threatening letters from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Add to that permit costs of $7,000 and improvement costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, fear of creating a paper trail for federal prosecutors, and the nature of bureaucracy and it’s clear that the problem isn’t simply one of stoners who can’t get their shit together.
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What’s up with the restaurant surcharges?

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The last time I had lunch at the Slow Club, the check came with a little notice: $1 was added to the cost of every meal to cover the cost of complying with the city’s new health-care mandate. That was fine — if I can afford to eat at the Slow Club I can afford an extra buck so the people who work there can get health insurance.

But it’s interesting that the place didn’t just raise prices by $1 (which most people wouldn’t have noticed — restaurant prices go up all the time). They made a point of letting everyone know that the money was for a new government mandate. It was, in its own way, a political statement: Hey, sorry we have to charge you more, but the city is forcing us to do it.

That’s made some local activists a bit angry (there’s a fascinating little bit on it in the San Francisco Magazine blog — Sup. Tom Ammiano (who wrote the health-care bill) and labor leader Chriss Romero were eating at 2223 Restaurant on Market, and Romero got pissed off when the tab came with a four percent service charge that mentioned the insurance rule.

I get Romero’s point, and we supported the Ammiano legislation — and as someone who works at a small business that has always provided health insurance to employees and is still getting hit with some serious additional expenses to comply, I understand why the restaurants are trying to make a point about it.

And it’s absolutely true that restaurants never do this when other mandates, taxes, fees and expensive compliance rules take effect (you never see it for increases in the minimum wage, for example).

Mild statement or annoying protest? Thoughts?

Historic day

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Today’s various May Day celebrations and demonstrations in San Francisco are unique. Never before have we seen the labor, immigrant rights, youth, and anti-war movements joined so closely and seamlessly into a coalition that is demanding a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign and economic policies. The messages from the podiums in Civic Center, Dolores Park, Justin Herman Plaza, and the ILWU Hall sounded surprisingly similar and unifying themes, making common cause of their struggles for a more just world that empowers all people, regardless of the artificial borders that separate them.
ILWU made history by shutting down all West Coast ports over a war. Previously, such tactics would only be employed for labor contracts, while the AFL-CIO and other major unions have never voted to oppose a U.S. war. It probably didn’t make much of a difference in the prosecution of the war, but it does signal a possible turning point and a coalescing of disparate groups around a set of issues that need to be more forcefully embraced by those in power (are you listening, Madame Speaker?) if they want to remain there.
Yes, it was a beautiful day in San Francisco in more ways than one. We’ll have more on what it all means — including color from the events and reporting on the issues — in the days to come and in next week’s paper.

Sizzle-shazam: Lazer Sword cuts loose

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In which the breathless writer of this week’s Super Ego column in the paper, laying out the deets on the emerging lazer bass sound, cuts deeper with bass-bangin’ SF duo Lazer Sword (and gets a li’l spankin’ for slapping the “lazer bass” genre header over their sick-ass beats.) Stick it to me! Below is my e-mail interview with swordsters Lando Kal and LL …

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The dynamic duo
Photo by Jordan Fraker

SFBG: So what’s the Lazer Sword backstory?
LL: I’m 26 years old and originally from Portland, OR, back when the Trailblazers were hot, but have been in SF for nearly 5 years now. Before I made the move I was heavily into making hip-hop beats in a rap group called Evil Hands, and when we started getting some shows around town I had no choice but to be the DJ (the guy who mans the CD player and does little scratches over the hook) so I was kind of forced to get used to standing on stage and learn to actually spin records a bit since I wasn’t one of the rappers.

After landing in SF I continued to work on music and started playing around with more instrumental type of shit since I had no homies who rapped in the immediate area. Lando and I had crossed paths a few times in the city before we actually got together on some music, but after an official introduction from our mutual hombre Keenan (2005?) we found many similarities in what each other were doing in our respective studios and how we were both trying to do some new experimental shit as well. For a couple months we dabbled around and got a feel for where things were going, but after some people heard what we were doing there was a bit of force put on coming up with a way to hit the streets, so insert a few more months of hard work and eventually we had a live show.

Lazer Sword rip up Rickshaw Stop, May 2007

LANDO: Well I’m 24 and though born in San Francisco, I grew up in Sacramento. I’ve been back for about 6 years now and still enjoy every bit of it. I’ve been producing/ DJing for about 8 years now, messing around with various styles throughout the years. I met Bryant about 4 years ago here in San Francisco and we’ve been labcolabin’ ever since. We met through mutual friends and through passing at Amoeba records (where I worked at the time), trading thoughts on good records for sample material and what not, and began visiting each others’ respective home studios to jam the fuck out. Noticing we had very similar tastes in music and production styles, we naturally began throwing our ideas together, creating boosty tunes and realizing it all worked well together. We’ve been performing for a little over a year now and the sets have changed quite a bit since the first show. I think we can read each other a bit more.

SFBG: What’s going on up there on stage and how do you work together to produce your sound? Especially, how do you produce your lazer bass sound?

D-Structuring the Antique Roadshow

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By Vanessa K. Carr

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First Fridays aren’t just for Oakland anymore: D-Structure now hosts art openings the first Friday of every month at their boutique in the Lower Haight.

After a successful show last month with painter Aaron Nagel, D-Structure is launching their latest exhibit, The Antique Roadshow, this Friday, 5/2. The launch party also celebrates the addition of San Francisco-based clothing line Correct Clothing to their stock.

According to Correct Clothing co-founder Thomas Lerou, “Correct Clothing is a lifestyle brand, which means we draw inspiration from the music and art that create the lifestyle. Our clothing will always be linked to music and art.”

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Coming Correct

The line keeps it simple – t-shirts and hats only – that they design to be more classic than trendy.

D-Structure’s Antique Roadshow features more than 40 pieces of artwork by local artists Ian Hill, ZenTen, and TenFold, who together are known as the Swedish Milk Toast Collective. In his own way, each of these artists re-envisions the past from a futuristic perspective through the lens of urban and pop art.

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Ian Hill’s “Skeptic”

To make the event “a true antique bazaar and roadshow,” says D-Structure’s Cassidy Blackwell, the store will have “antique trinkets displayed all over the gallery space.”

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Tenfold takes it on the road

Music will be provided by local DJs Bogle, DJ Centipede, and Citizen Ten (a.k.a. artist TenZen).

The Antique Roadshow
Reception May 2, 8 p.m.
D-Structure
520 Haight, SF
415-252-8601

Happy May Day!

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May Day is the most peculiar of the American non-holiday holidays. Throughout Europe, South America, and much of the world, it is known as International Workers Day, a day celebrating labor solidarity that marks the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago. Ironically, it never really caught on in the U.S., with our fears of all things even a bit Red.
But this being San Francisco, there’s still a strong contingent of lefties and other labor supporters that will be marking May Day tomorrow with marches and events covering a variety of related causes. Starting at 10:30 a.m., dock workers and anti-war activists will gather at the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union Hall at Mason and Beach streets, from which they’ll hold a march in support of the ILWU decision to take the day off in protest of the Iraq War, thus slowing down the war machine just a bit. The march ends at Justin Herman Plaza for a noon rally.
Then at 2 p.m., supporters of immigrant rights will gather in Dolores Park and march to Civic Center for a 5 p.m. rally. And that evening at 7:30, the feisty Young Workers United will throw a May Day party at Balazo Gallery, 2183 Mission at 18th.
So, comrades, join the festivities and have a happy May Day.

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