I’m glad the guy behind the “average neighbours” sign posted what can only be described as a long-winded artist’s statement (with an inexplicable Young Jeezy shout-out) because it led to some new light on the original “bad neighbors” saga. To bring you up to speed, Schmidt’s moved into the corner a couple of years ago, the upstairs neighbors didn’t like it and posted a “bad neighbors” sign, and the guy across the street didn’t like the sign, so he posted his own sign last week.
But first, here’s a snippet of the “average neighbour” guy’s comment:
I posted that sign. It is in response to the bad neighbors sign, which apparently exists as a means to establish a new status quo of sign/neighbor/relationship commentary.
Every night I look out my window at what used to be a beautiful view and is now a snarky, insipid, whiny symbol of everything that is passive-aggressive about our city and it’s typical inhabitants. I can no longer watch a simple sunset without being forced to reflect on how babyish the members of my community constantly are. For two years now.
Victims.
…
I urge all of you to view the Smitzs’ ‘bad neighbors’ sign not as a perfectly ugly window into the most entitled and obnoxious voice of a truly ugly-on-the-inside person, my neighbor. See it as a commentary on the nature of advertizing and it’s divine, invisible power over our…
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You get the idea. Now I don’t know whether to smile at what I thought was a light-hearted gag or to punch a wall.
Revisiting the original “bad neighbors” thread, I discovered that the roommate of what we all probably assumed to be a crazy person told a lucid side of the story 6 months ago. I don’t know if they ever got their fair shot after the Mission Loc@l article, so here ya go:
The Mission Local blog post linked in this article is biased and one sided. They didn’t even attempt to get my roommates side of the story, yes I live with the “bad neighbors lady”.
We lived in beautiful harmony with the El Faro market for years. They cooked in the back and there was never any problem. One day the landlord decided to take a stab at running a restaurant and evicted our convenient little market/ take out food place downstairs. He got some partners to front for him and open a beer bar in it’s place. We protested and got the neighborhood together to sign a letter, we successfully put a hold on the beer and wine license.
About a year went by and we were contacted by David Peirce and his wife, believe her name is Christine Schmidt, about how they wanted to take over the space but our hold on the license was still in place. Should have smelled a rat there. They promised us that they cared about the other people in the building and that they’d be good neighbors. they said we could always talk to them about any problem and that we’d always get a healthy discount when we ate there. I love beer and German food so I was falling in love with these guys. I talked my roommates into retracting their objection to the alcohol license.
Within a week Schmidt’s installed some loud equipment on to the roof of our building that made our whole flat shake like a bus was going by non stop for 16 hours a day…
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There are two sides to every story. Looks like they tried to work it out in person and when they ran out of options, resorted to creative stationary. The tenants have allegedly been there for over 10 30 years and probably enjoy some baller rent control, so I doubt the building owner is too interested in conflict resolution in lieu of waiting to see if they get fed up enough to move out.
We’ve all had noisy neighbors before, how much should you be expected to put up with it? I used to live in a great, cheap 1-br apartment on Fell and Van Ness next to the Rickshaw Stop. I tried to accept the thumping bass and folks pouring into the street at 2am as city flavor, but in my 2+ years there I never got used to it. Eventually, I just got up and moved. Not everyone has that luxury.
In any case, it’s sad that a lot of people in this city don’t pay attention to their neighbors until they hate them. Go leave a fruit basket next door tonight.
Update: Mission Loc@l did a follow up with the tenant that we missed a few weeks after the original story. Here it is. (thanks Rigoberto Hernandez)
 because it led to some new light on the original “bad neighbors” saga. To bring you up to speed, Schmidt’s moved into the corner a couple of years ago, […]</p>
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For your consideration:
I did a follow up and I talked to the Patricia Kerman. You can see it here:
http://missionlocal.org/2010/07/the-stand-off-at-schmidts/
Further, I made every attempt at contacting Kerman via phone and she called me back after the first article came out. We went out for coffe shortly after that. For the future please feel to contact me via email (rigoberh@gmail.com) or cell phone 760-672-7086 before taking someone’s anonymous account as fact.
Lastly, I am sorry about the tone of my comments, but that was my natural (over)reaction to the post. Best, RH.
No offense taken, you did a lot of great work on the story. I linked the follow-up article. Crazy that 1.5 years later, this never went to mediation.
shouts to allen, his average neighbors sign and subsequent explanation is the only good thing to come of this entire balogna
young money cash money billionaires baby, hundred million dollars
So let’s get this straight: Ike’s was forced to move because their NIMBY neighbors were pissed about the smell. Schmidt’s has proper ventilation equipment installed, and their NIMBY neighbors are pissed about the ventilation noise.
Clearly the neighbors just don’t want to live in a mixed-use building and are willing to make up excuses to kick them out. What is a restaurant in these situations to do?
They need to grow some cajones, walk in there and say if they don’t fix their fan you’re coming back next week to knock it off. the end.
or try to cut a deal in exchange for free food.
or read a book and figure out how to use active vibration dampening.
that’s kind of what I thought- if you don’t want to fix this, then I will *FIX* this.
(I honestly have no idea why the power cord keeps cutting itself like that. Weird right?)
Hey No Fish, that “problem” has been fixed…maybe now Patricia can stop dropping bowling balls( or whatever the hell she’s dropping) on the floor. Schmidt’s are good people, and good neighbors.
Love how this guy whines about a sign the size of a sheet of paper and then refers to hating the whininess.
Agreed. And he calls the “bad neighbor” sign “passive aggressive”, when its not at all passive, its good old fashioned aggressive. His “good neighbor” sign, on the other hand, is completely passive aggressive, not to mention (using his words) “a snarky, insipid, whiny symbol of everything that is passive-aggressive about our city and it’s typical inhabitants.”
The “bad neighbor” sign was borne of frustration and really having no other recourse. The “good neighbor” sign is pure passive aggressive snark.
A year or so ago some friends and I ate dinner at Schmidt’s. After we were done, we hung out outside for another 15 mins or so, chatting and smoking on the corner. This was around 9pm at night, so not even that late. Apparently we were deemed too loud because the “bad neighbor” lady decided that she should DUMP WATER ON US. What ever happened to a polite, “Hey guys, can you please keep it down?” Sheesh. Yeah, sounds like a real rational human to be negotiating with.
Wow. Did you call the cops on her? If not, you should have.
We did actually. Filed a report at the police station. They all kind of looked at me funny. “Really? You’re filing a report because someone threw water on you?” Whatever. It was uncool.
If you don’t like it, move somewhere else. Simple.
You don’t get it, do you? These folks’ goal is to benefit from the reduced rent of a mixed-use building, without having to deal with the downsides of living in a mixed-use building.
They want to cheat their way into getting the best of both worlds. And it seems to work, because the city always sides with NIMBYs.
+1
NOTHING SHOULD EVER CHANGE EVER! I WAS HERE FIRST!
“We protested and got the neighborhood together to sign a letter, we successfully put a hold on the beer and wine license.”
…and this is supposed to be the sympathetic account of these people? Christ on a crutch.
Radish on 19 and Lexington should be the next bad neighbor victim. Since taking over an empty corner market (which was a good thing) they have proceeded to do nothing for the neighborhood. They wash their greasy mats on our sidewalk and now it stinks and they never clean up their corner. They constantly have the remnants of their own garbage strewn in the gutter OI outside their corner.
It’s a money grab and a shame. Bad neighbor Radish!!
Also, it’s ‘stationery.’ Jesus.