If that left you feeling empty inside, then push in your stool and watch these!
(Always open with a poop joke, then move on to the legal news.)
Some potential good news for Mezzanine, and for anyone in the nightlife industry who find themselves facing off against a predatory landlord:
Supervisor Matt Haney's resolution would make it harder to turn venues into tech office space:
If passed, this measure would provide interim zoning controls in Western Soma for 18 months to ensure that entertainment venues are not converted to other uses without going in front of the Planning Commission, and if needed, at the full Board of Supervisors. [...]
"This is even bigger than the Mezzanine," Haney said. "Across SoMa, we have had a long history of nightlife and entertainment that has been the lifeline of this community and has provided tremendous culture, art, and community building to all of San Francisco. And it's in danger right now."
Haney added that his resolution would allow an added layer of oversight and accountability and bring questions of public interest and social impact to the forefront. He tied the Mezzanine's current predicament to the larger patterns of displacement and erasure of important community spaces to development, exorbitant rents, and landlord and property owner profits. Losing these venues would be "bad for San Francisco, bad for SoMa, and a huge loss that would be hard to replace," Haney said.
The machinations described in the next article are a bit confusing, but I think what it says is that the "4AM last call" thing is done for, again, because Weiner decided to throw it under a bus so that he could get a different bill passed instead, using a pretty sketchy legislative trick:
Wiener's gut-and-amend tactics: Will they return with SB 50?
As of September, "Last Call" had been voted out of both Assembly Committees to the Assembly floor, but "Sex Offenders" had been held in suspense (i.e., tabled) in the Assembly Appropriations Committee (the suspense file of the Appropriations Committee in either the Assembly or the Senate is generally a graveyard where bills go to die). So "Sex Offenders" died in 2017, at least in name.
But Wiener used a dubious legislative practice called "gut and amend" to let "Last Call" -- the live bill -- die and replace it with the dead bill, "Sex Offenders". [...]
So, presto, with a sleight of hand and a little bit of fairy dust, "Sex Offenders" had a second life after "Last Call" was gutted and amended to a completely different subject. Opposition melted away and the bill sailed through.
So in this game of procedural Three Card Monte, "SB 384" (formerly known as "SB 58?", the Last Call bill, which was moving forward, has been bodysnatched and replaced by previously-dead-but-now-zombiefied "SB 421", a bill to reduce the length of time that people who commit misdemeanor sexcrimes stay on the registry. I don't know much about that bill, but it seems to be opposed by a bunch of shitheads, so probably it's fine. But these two bills have nothing to do with each other, and this is why people say you shouldn't watch sausages being made.
(Poop joke callback)
As someone with a lot of experience dealing with liquor licensing, the following piece of performance art seems like it was made specifically for my enjoyment. Chef kiss, A+, would watch again. This process started last year and was derailed, but is now being allowed to go forward:
Trump Hotel could have its liquor license revokes because of namesake's character:
D.C. law states that liquor license applicants must be of "good character and generally fit for the responsibilities of licensure."
"Donald Trump, the true and actual owner of the Trump International Hotel, is not a person of good character," the residents wrote in their complaint, citing in detail what they characterize as "certain lies he has told, his involvement in relevant fraudulent and other activity demonstrating his lack of integrity, and his refusal to abide by the law or to stop associating with known criminals."
Lawyers for the hotel appealed and asked the board to dismiss the case on technical grounds. But this time, the board denied the hotel's request -- and this week issued a ruling that clears the way for the complaint to move to mediation or a hearing before the board.
Thank you, emolument your bartenders.
