You’ve probably heard that Adobe Books had to leave their 16th Street location recently, and relocated to a new location on 24th Street. You’ve probably also heard that Jack Spade, an upscale retail store that is a spin off of Kate Spade which is a subsidiary of Liz Claiborne, was planning to move into Adobe’s old location well before Adobe had even publicly conceded to leaving. (For reference, check out Kevin’s reporting here)
Well, a bunch of “Valencia Corridor” businesses are opposing Jack Spade as a formula retailer brand from a multinational company, and therefore not a part of the Mission community. The opening of a store like this will pave the way for more companies to take root in the neighborhood, and push out the local businesses. Makes sense to me.
I’d also add that they really only appeal to a certain kind of well moneyed, overly groomed young urban professional scenester, but that’s pretty much the Valencia Corridor in a nutshell.
Anyway, you can sign their petition here, and the event should be fun, with proceeds going to “support the Stop Jack Spade campaign”.
I can’t see any difference between Jack Spade and any of the other new clothing stores that have opened in the area in the last few years. Seriously, what real difference would it make to anyone?
And really, if you’re going to use a clumsy junior high school sex pun to bill your event then that event should at least be gay, and really it should feature glory holes or something. Boys will be boys is a long standing SF tradition, but when proprietary arriviste hipsters start doing it it’s kind of gross.
The difference is that Jack Spade (and American Apparel or whatever the chain store that tried to move into the ATA space a couple years ago is called) are corporations, whereas Adobe Books and the several other stores recently forced to move, are independently-owned local businesses. That makes a huge difference. Check out the businesses that are along the Valencia Corridor and 16th street today and you will see a decided lack of chain stores. Corporations may be people to some, but when you are personally acquainted with the people who have lost their businesses or been forced to move, the corporations become less appealing. San Francisco has three major malls and they welcome the corporation people.
“Corporations may be people to some, but when you are personally acquainted with the people who have lost their businesses or been forced to move, the corporations become less appealing.”
The commercial space that Adobe Books moved into on 24th St was not vacant either. Why don’t you care about Community Boards, which was evicted from 3130 24th St for not being able to afford the rising rents on that corridor? Those owners are just as sad to have been forced to move and lose their business.
Community Boards was not evicted from 3130 24th and did not lose their business. They had moved to a new office before Adobe even began looking at 24th street. Just ask them. Adobe and Community Boards have done the last two Sunday Streets together on 24th and each is happy for the other.
While I see a difference between corporate chains and local businesses, just because something is local doesn’t mean it is necessarily benefiting the community more than a chain store. Some local stores treat their employees like shit, don’t invest in the community, and scam customers and employees alike (see the mass pocketing of the Healthy SF surcharge by local restaurants). To get all enraged about this and not enraged about other businesses that are being evicted, only to be replaced by high-end restaurants that a large chunk of the community cannot afford, is bullshit.
Waaa! We can’t afford the rent. Someone come please protect us from the big bad corporations!
Seriously tired of this shit. If the community is so opposed to chain stores, let’s have one move in. They will fail, right? I mean… no one will shop there since the community is SOOOOO opposed to it…
Sorry the last company couldn’t afford to be in one of the more prized locations in the city. We probably should have given them small business welfare.
Hate to tell you none, but folks are going to come in the neighborhood TO shop at Jack Spade, so your idea that the neighborhood won’t shop there, and therefore the store will close, doesn’t work.
“Waaa! . . . Someone come please protect us from the big bad corporations!”
None, just to be clear, do you mean to imply in your sarcastic remark that no such things as “big bad corporations” actually exist and that if they did exist governments and voters should not be permitted to regulate them?
You are merely restating the premise (“‘Corporations’ are bad. ‘Locally owned businesses’ are good.”) without explaining why it is true. There are lots of things people believe just because they and other people decide its cool to believe them. San Francisco has long prided itself on being a place where people think for themselves and ask “Why?” So I’m asking why. Why *exactly* is it “better for the community” somehow for a boutique selling expensive new clothes on Valencia St. to be a one-of-a-kind business owned by someone who perhaps lives in San Francisco or nearby, rather than being part of a chain that has owners who perhaps live elsewhere?
Tom, if you honestly can’t see the value in limiting the growth of billion-dollar international corporate chain stores in San Francisco neighborhoods, then you need a MUCH deeper education that anyone could possibly provide for you in the comment section of a single blog post.
Do you think there is (or ever was) something/anything special about San Francisco and some of its neighborhoods? Are you honestly not able to recognize how the fact that some neighborhoods in this city are yet not overrun with Walmarts, McDonalds, and designer chainstores, might just have some small part to do with why SF is not yet as bland and stupid as 99.9% of the rest of this country?
Sorry, homie, but it’s OBVIOUS. Chainstores suck. They ruin neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood. Town after town after town. It’s OBVIOUS.
Local economies pose unique challenges, yes. But they are superior in essentially every regard to economies where ownership is absent and wealth is extracted from the local community and filtered into the pockets of stockholders in far off places who have no connection to the local community.
Wake up, Tom. Read some books and maybe a few issues of Adbusters, and save yourself.
Again, Andy, you merely restate the premise without explaining why you believe it is true.
“Again, Andy, you merely restate the premise without explaining why you believe it is true.”
Tom, I guess you didn’t read what I wrote?
“Local economies pose unique challenges, yes. But they are superior in essentially every regard to economies where ownership is absent and wealth is extracted from the local community and filtered into the pockets of stockholders in far off places who have no connection to the local community.”
This is one tiny aspect of the issue and yet it alone is enough of an argument to limit corporate chain store growth.
Here’s another one:
Corporate chain stores drive up rents and eventually make it impossible for anything other than corporate chain stores to exist in the corridor. Maybe this doesn’t bother you. Fact: it bothers a majority of SF voters, for starters.
Chain stores driving up rents is also alone reason enough to regulate their growth.
Meanwhile, I’d love for you to answer my direct questions you avoided:
“Do you think there is (or ever was) something/anything special about San Francisco and some of its neighborhoods? Are you honestly not able to recognize how the fact that some neighborhoods in this city are yet not overrun with Walmarts, McDonalds, and designer chainstores, might just have some small part to do with why SF is not yet as bland and stupid as 99.9% of the rest of this country?”
But maybe you like corporate chain stores. Maybe you like Walmart and prefer eating at McDonalds to eating at a local taqueria. Fine. Then I can’t convince you of anything and we have nothing to discuss. But there are plenty of people in this town who want local businesses and local character and that’s a big reason SF is the unique place that it is and it’s a big reason why so many people want to live here.
I think most people get that even if you can’t seem to.
Jack Spade is one and the same as Kate Spade LLC, a company with nearly 200 stores in the US. When Jack Spade sought a permit to open on 16th (and kick out the wonderful Adobe Books after 25 years) they lied about their company so that they could flout the law and not be treated as the formula retail chain store that they are. Jack Spade/Kate Spade defrauded the city and broke the law.
This tells me all I need to know about this company and the regard and respect it has for the community in which it wishes to insert itself.
We don’t have a law preventing independent high-end boutiques them taking over the neighborhood but we DO have a law that makes it more difficult for chain stores to take over the neighborhood and Jack Spade lied and cheated to flout that law.
“I can’t see any difference between Jack Spade and any of the other new clothing stores that have opened in the area in the last few years.”
You can’t see a difference between local shops and corporate chains? Bullshit.
When it comes to hip, new, fashionable clothing stores, I cannot see any difference between Jack Spade and any of the several others that have opened in the area in the last few years. Not bullshit. So you see a difference. Wonderful. What is this difference you see, and to whom does it matter?
Go into those stores and ask to speak to the owner. That’s the difference, you will be able to because they have owners.
Therefore what? If you get the products and service you want, why does it matter whether the owner is there or an employee? And if you don’t, ditto. What difference does it make? You can always email the owner or manager if you need to tell them something. And if you aren’t happy with a store you can just shop elsewhere.
Again, if you can’t see how a neighborhood that is overrun with corporate chain stores is different from a neighborhood dominated by independent local businesses than you are truly culturally and spiritually challenged and sadly ignorant of reality.
Do you honestly not see the cultural benefits to the communities of neighborhoods filled with local, independent businesses? And if not please explain to us if and why you choose to live in San Francisco. Is it the Potrero Hill strip mall, Safeways, and Jamba Juices that drew you? And if so then you I suggest you live in a suburb where you can have all these things and the rent and mortgages are a whole helluva lot cheaper.
you’re a fucking idiot.
Tom I’m going to have to call bullshit on everything you’re saying here. Either you’re trolling, or you’re just beyond stupid. I don’t really care which.
Both
No, he’s that dumb. Please don’t insult me again.
I can’t see the difference either.
Betabrand, Self Edge, and Taylor Stitch look like the same exact thing as Jack Spade. There is ZERO difference in the product, pricing, the crowd, the shopping experience, etc.
The only difference is the financial backing (2-steps removed, I might add). If supporting local businesses is really what’s top of mind to you when you’re buying $200 jeans, then enjoy the smell of your own artisan farts.
On of the main issues is that money generated in the community staying in the community rather than going back to a corporate master. That benefits the community. It really has nothing to do w/ artisan anything. The issues isn’t overpriced boutique, that battle has been lost (or won). The issue is benefitting the community. Not that complicated.
Bingo. I don’t understand how anyone can’t see that.
Really, I don’t think there is any evidence that the money generated actually goes back into the community. Some would like you to believe that, but it ain’t necessarily so.
I’m not trying to be purposefully obtuse here, but I really don’t get the difference. What is the difference between a corporation making money off of a store and a person (or group of people) having a store and [hopefully] getting rich off that, hoping to turn it into a national (or multi-national) chain? It really, honestly, seems like the same thing to me. It’s not like the store owner selling goods is doing it to benefit the community–they’re doing it to make money, in hopes of making more money.
I don’t see any difference either, as I’ve said, and when challenged to explain the difference it seems the anti-Jack Spade commenters just repeat their premise and declare it self-evident.
If the owner of the store is local, then they likely spend their money here, rather than sending it to shareholders or Delaware, or wherever they’re incorporated. I think that’s the point that’s being made by CG, though he can correct me if I’m wrong.
So what exactly is this “benefit to the community” that comes from a one-of-a-kind boutique that doesn’t come from Jack Spade? Even assuming the one-of-a-kind boutique owner lives here and the owners of Jack Spade don’t, what difference does it make?
One-of-a-kind boutiques create the illusion that Valencia Street is a very special place – an amazing achievement given its lack of architectural distinction. I’m sure the property owners are amazed by this windfall.
The biggest difference is that when a shop is locally owned and operated that means more of the money spent in that shop stays in the local community. Those owners spend that money back into the community. It’s a pretty simple part of economics.
Also business owners from a community tend to know each and do other business locally – suppliers, et, al.. whereas if you’re run from NYC, then the same biz that does the curtains in LA might do them in NYC, b/c of economies of scale it makes more sense… etc…. more money to local biz/ people/ our town/ our community etc.. you get point I hope.
OK, so mattod finally identified an economic factor favoring local ownership over outside ownership, namely that local owners might spend a greater part of their profits (if any) locally than outsiders would. But that is just one of many factors. Outside owners bring in outside money to start the business. The money that would have been used by the would-be local owner is instead used for something else that might also be local. Limiting the ability of outsiders to start businesses here lowers the value of local real estate causing less money to be available to be spent here by local real estate owners in general. There are many economic factors and they combine in complex ways. Yet we have commenters here that claim that the net results favor the pro-local approach in ways that are *obvious!* and that anyone who doubts the pro-local catechism simply needs to “educate” themselves (as though all of the pro-local folks have all done some sort of robust economic analysis). I’m still unconvinced that this whole anti-chain sentiment is in fact a the result of rational economic analysis rather than merely people wanting to be cool latching onto the hip dogma.
how does Betabrand making money for their VC investors put money back into the community?
+1 Gambino
I really hope they’re able to keep Jack Spade out. Fuck that Chainstore bullshit.
WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES WANT TO STOP PROGRESS YOU FUCKING DICKS?!?!?!?!
Because we don’t want San Francisco or the Mission District to look like an L.A. strip mall.
The MIssion already looks like LA. Do you know what LA looks like?
Really? I think not. L.A. bulldozed its history. The Mission is full of history.
The Mission is dirty and run down. Why can’t people at least pick up trash. It’s everywhere. Or are dirty streets part of its history?
Yup. Unlike the Mission, LA looks shitty.
Definitely. Strip malls are very bad for property values.
Yeah but they have the best Chinese food
Either you’re trolling, or you’re just beyond stupid.
In light of the obvious affect chain stores have on small business, this should be a no-brainer. We have values in the Mission…or we did until you guys got here (and to the old neighbor, don’t give us that whiny ‘i’m jealous because I can’t afford nice clothes bs – it’s possible to be a well off conscious consumer).
If you’re an angry capitalist who is confused by all this and just moved to the hood, please catch up quickly or just go – you don’t understand the community and we all hate your ass. Really. Something has to give.
Wow, you are really uptight. Unpleasant people like you who are all about hating others is not what the Mission needs. Please move on. Thanks.
simon stark… you aint from around here, are ya? just build your app, have your fun, buy yr clothes downtown & let the adults talk, OK?
Valencia St. is the new Union St. The might as well bring in a Ferrari dealership.
what….4 barrell?
the most pretentious assholes on the street oppose jack spade?
if and when jack spade opens and doesn’t have a line out the door, it will be due to the smear campaign against them.
do you know how many groups of 3-4 dudes walking down valencia street i see wearing the exact same “wanna be ” hipster out fits i see everyday walking with my daughter?? they still have the price tags hanging off their jeans.
wake up! valencia street and soon the whole mission will be the new marina. everyone looking to coop the next scene by young people without money. how ironic huh?
You should tell those 3-4 dudes to stop walking with your daughter.
If the Mission is becoming the new Marina, then what is the old Marina becoming? Come to think of it, maybe it’s becoming the new Marin.
and Marin is the new Oakland…..wait, wait, I can do this!
If people don’t care about stopping Jack Spade moving in/supporting local business/defending a voter approved 2006 decision, that’s cool. You don’t care. If you don’t see the difference, don’t love certain local businesses, and don’t want to protect them, that’s your prerogative. So don’t come to the party, then. Because last I heard, this party isn’t mandatory, and this community effort isn’t either. But complaining about what other people care about and actually do with their time and money, or how we involve ourselves with our community–just complaining that someone bothers to care about something you don’t… Seriously. That is the lowest.
When people take it upon themselves to speak on behalf of “the community” on a public internet forum there is nothing illegitimate about others offering contrary opinions as part of a general discussion of the topic at hand. Learn to internet.
“But complaining about what other people care about and actually do with their time and money, or how we involve ourselves with our community–just complaining that someone bothers to care about something you don’t… Seriously.”
Are you serious about this? Read through it again and think of what you are saying.
Sorry Roisin, but you are the one doing the complaining. Basically you are saying that someone who has a different opinion than you isn’t part of the community. That is very narrow-minded. What you try actually explaining your position rather complaining that those who have different opinions are the “lowest”. Very knee-jerk of you.
i think whats happening here (the jaded attitudes ) is a byproduct of residents feeling out of touch
apathy happens once youve been let down one too many times. i get the sense that there is some apathy from some people because they’ve just been let down after supposedly being “included” and then ultimately excluded in the new neighborhood culture.
i love discussions like these. miss you sf! -some new yorker
One thing that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned here is the fact that we actually have a law, passed directly by voters, that regulates chain store permits in certain merchant corridors.
If you’re a chainstore you have to make a case in public hearings for why you’ll be good for the neighborhood.
Jack Spade straight up lied to avoid this process. They said they were a little company with only 7 stores and therefore the formula retail ordinance did not apply to them. Turns out the Jack Spade and Kate Spade are one and the same and have close to 200 stores in the US.
Again, this is a law passed by SF voters and Jack Spade lied and cheated to flout the law.
Jack Spade is a separate LLC from Kate Spade. If the formula retail law is overly broad for your agenda than you need to change it, otherwise Jack Spade meets the requirements to locate in the Mission.
This is NIMBYsm.
They are nottseparate companies. Jack Spade and Kate Spade share the same office. They share payroll. When applying for a position with Jack Spade one applies with Kate Spade. Visit their website. By no reasonable standard are Kate Spade and Jack Spafe different companies.
Yes the existing law should be amended to prevent companies from sneaking in as “small businesses” before they immediately expand to a thousand stores, but the existing law does actually cover Jack Spade/Kate Spade which with its nearly 200 stores in the US is defined as formula retail under the existing language of the ordinance.
The only way Jack Spade was able to get their permit without a conditional use hearing was because they lied about the nature of their company and their store count.
Jack Spade has less than 11 stores. You are taking liberties with the current ordinance that do not exist regarding seed money and affiliated businesses. By that rationale we should ban any store on Valencia that has seed money from deep tech pockets. Betabrand is a unique store, but they can afford that rent because they are backed with tech money. They are certainly not “mom and pop” but they shouldn’t be banned just because their backing is tech just like Jack Spade’s money is from Claibourne. Let’s see, who else on Valencia is backed with tech money…..?
This.
isn’t jack spade a subsidiary of liz claiborne? that would make it larger than 11 stores.
liz claiborne is a $1.5 billion dollar concern.
http://uptownalmanac.com/2013/06/liz-claiborne-holdings-halts-construction-former-site-adobe-books
Andy seems really angry. I admire his passion but his grasp of the law is sketchy and he seems to have no qualms bending facts for his argument.
Jack Spade is a separate LLC from Kate Spade. Their product is unique from each other. Jack Spade will be a unique and individual store in SF, located in the Mission. Isn’t that the whole point of this ordinance?
I agree with Aaron, if you want the law to be more specific (or more punitive) then rally your supervisor to change the law.
The strip mall Potrero Center is godawful, but so are the numerous empty storefronts all over Castro because of this law.
Good intentions, but what is the road to hell paved with?
Miranda/Emo, there’s a lot more intended in the ordinance than you seem to understand. We want to keep billion-dollar corporate retailers out of corridors such as the Mission because they have immensely deep pockets, can pay virtually any amount of rent, and eventually make it impossible for anyone else but billion-dollar corporate retailers to have business in the neighborhood.
Again, Kate and Jack Spade share the same office. They share the same PAYROLL, in other words Jack Spade employees get paid by Kate Spade. It says so on their paychecks. In SEC filings the companies are frequently referred to as male and female brands of the same company.
Anyone can create an LLC to try to obscure the exact nature of their business, but the proof is in the pudding, in the payroll, and in the SEC filings. They have all the advantages of being the same company they just have two names for the sake of targeting different sexes with their products.
My grasp of the law isn’t sketchy though y’all’s understanding of it’s intent is most definitely sketchy, at best. I’m guessing you didn’t like in SF when the law was debated — or possibly don’t and never have lived in SF at all?
And to be clear I haven’t the slightest affection for Betabrand, wish they opened on Valencia, and wish we had a law to keep them out of the neighborhood as well. But for better or worse that is not the issue at hand.
We DO currently have a law to make chain stores like Jack Spade go through the conditional use permit process. They can still open if the community wants them but they can’t if the community doesn’t want them. Sounds like democracy to me. I’d like a whole lot more democracy in the community determining the nature of development in its neighborhoods, but this is what we’ve got for the moment.
Under existing law Jack Spake should have faced a conditional use permit hearing in the first place and that’s all we’re asking for. Call me angry but that’s actually perfectly reasonable.
“wish they NEVER opened on on Valencia” i mean!
I have to call bullshit on this idea that formula retail is what is ruining neighborhoods. I live in the Upper Haight now, where there is an American Apparel sitting next to Robert’s Hardware (locally owned) and just down the block from Hobson’s Choice (locally owned, but a douchehaven). There are a lot of things wrong with the Haight and a lot of things that just flat-out suck about it, but not a single one of those things is because of the American Apparel.
Their real goal is to limit the raising rents. Keep the chains out and the rent increases will only double or triple.
Now, that I can understand. I don’t buy the rest of it, though.
Well, I live in the City and it’s distressing how it’s become NIMBYs run amok. So, a law should ban Betabrand from Valencia, and a law should ban Jack Spade from 16th? Hmmm, so they’re not cool enough? Unique enough? Small enough? Exclusive enough? Artisanal enough? This enough, that enough?
Andy and his cronies are about to achieve what I thought was impossible: they are about to make Jack Spade look like the underdog.
“Hmmm, so they’re not cool enough? Unique enough? Small enough? Exclusive enough? Artisanal enough?”
Emo, honestly, you can’t be serious.
Jack Spade is a corporate chain store and part of a company that does over a billion and half dollars in annual sales. What is so hard to understand about what makes them different than a local mom and pop store?
Jack Spade with their $1000 per hour lawyers and team of PR representatives and paid consultants is the underdog here? You can’t be this foolish. No one could be.
And Emo you said yourself “the strip mall Potrero Center is godawful.”
Yes, exactly. Listen to yourself.
Yeah, it’s almost as awful as that graffiti-tagged, filthy, empty storefront on 16th Street that Jack Spade is trying to clean up.
Dude, that “empty storefront” was Adobe Books–an amazing community space for 25 years–before they got evicted so that Jack Spade could move in, pay triple the rent and sell $900 duffel bags.
Are you sure you live in San Francisco? Seems you would have know that.
Emo, If you want to live in a place full of corporate chain stores there are at least a million other places you can go and be quite happy.
San Francisco, for the time being, is, in few places, still different. Many people in the community like that, appreciate that, find value in that. A majority of the voters in this town used the democratic process to enact a law to reign in the rampant growth of corporate chain stores. This law applies to Jack Spade, though they misrepresented themselves to flout this law.
This isn’t NIMBYism. It’s democracy. But you seem to be way more concerned about the rights of a multi-billion-dollar corporation based in NY than you are about the rights of local voters to have a say in the development of their own community.
Be honest, did you vote for Mitt Romney?
I think you guys should meet at The Uptown and hash this out in person. Let us know when and we can referee.
Thanks Ariel. Great idea!
Debate accepted! Will Mission Mission cover it?
: )
Whatta ya say Emo?
Of course!
Not really into cross-talk Andy.
Well said.
While the intent of the formula retail ordinance seems to be much bigger, at its heart, it still is just about limiting retail based on how unique the store is or isn’t. It doesn’t limit retail based on the billions of dollars its corporate parent controls or whether or not it busts unions, uses slave labor in the Global South, or sells duffle bags that are as much as the weekly salary of someone living in the SRO next to door to proposed retail location. It really just limits the retail to stores that don’t share characteristics, merchandise, trademarks, etc with more than 11 stores. So no matter how many stores Kate has, it’s only Jack that matters (not that either of the Spades, matter, really).
I might agree with you that we should be shopping locally and supporting locally-owned businesses, but if we want to limit a retailer based on the net profit of its parent company, then I don’t think this ordinance can do it. Which I think is why this dialogue feels so tedious. Because some people want this conversation to be a broadside critique of corporate America, but others want to have a discussion about neighborhood feel, individualized and local impacts, etc. And then we can drift into NIMBY territory, which of course brings up the big question of who gets to determine the ‘M’ in the NIMBY. Whose Mission? (we have no clue).
And I just read through the SEC filings and the company sounds like it sucks. So, yes, Jack Spade isn’t its own company, it is a licensed brand
of Kate Spade, which is owned by Fifth and Pacific (I enjoyed Kevin’s reporting at Uptown Almanac that clarified some of this for me).
I’m still up for the Mission Mission hosted debate at Uptown if anyone cares to take the yes on Jack Spade side.
And I’ll buy the drinks for my opponent, win or lose!
: )
If only we could make this happen, but unfortunately many of our commenters lose their voice once they step away from the comfort of anonymity.
I don’t have a horse in this race but I do like to meet up with some of the crew from here for a drink.
I want a debate! I’d go, fur real.
yay!
This “Tom in SFCA” guy has to be a random troll. Nobody could ACTUALLY be that dumb.
you’d be surprised….
funny how people are like fixated on jack spade. how about all the restaurants on valencia, do you think they are all owned by “pull yourself up by your boot straps” folks? no, they have huge backing by uber wealthy restaurant groups. talk bout the 1%, any idea the single owner or few owners of these places clear every year? are they better than some cooperate executive making the same amount of money?
this is america, let jack spade open and if people dont want it, they wont shop there and they will close. but sadly they are exactly what these new moneyed mission people want. also, with all the backlash i am sure there business will be negatively affected because some people will be afraid to be seen shopping there.
the mission is dead, accept it and lets all move on. now when i see an over coiffed moron,with ugly shoes walking from valencia street with brand new outfits, from head to toe and carrying a little bag…i just laugh at them and whisper as they walk by…”welcome to YOUR new mission”
Cool story, but you give no concrete examples of current stores operating like that or these UBER backers!