It was there when Heather Raich arrived on Thurday morning to open up her restaurant, Charanga. Stuck to her window was a notice stating that she needed to clean the gum off the sidewalk in front of her restaurant in the next seven days, or pay a $500 fine.
Charanga is on Mission Street, one of the most heavily trafficked thoroughfares in the neighborhood. The corridor that it resides on – those eight blocks between the 16th and the 24th Street BART stops, could be described as arguably more gum than sidewalk.
“Merry Christmas,” says Raich, dispiritedly. “I’m used to the graffiti citations, but this was a first. I think they’re trying to make up some kind of budget shortfall. At $500 a pop, depending on how many storefronts they hit – that’s some money.”
Not so, says Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman with the Department of Public Works.
Merchants on heavily trafficked streets, like Mission and 24th Streets, have been receiving either brochures or letters about their sidewalk responsibilities, long before the warnings were posted, Falvey says.”The City is responsible for the streets, and the businesses are responsible for the sidewalks. That’s how it works in San Francisco and in most cities.”
Falvey called Mission Loc@l to add that Public Works has been working to improve the streets for more than three years and that the warning letters are just one small part of the city’s beautification goals.
The city already provides assistance with tree removal, graffiti clean up and sidewalk sweeping and are all part of the Community Corridors Partnership Program, Falvey said.
According to some numbers crunched by our former science reporter, Anrica Deb, there is over a ton of gum speckling the sidewalks of the Mission district. Her conclusion: better economic and environmental sense to leave it there than use the water, electricity, and money necessary to get it off. It would take one person working full-time for three years straight to get every last piece of gum off – and that’s only if the people of the Mission spontaneously stopped spitting fresh wads onto the sidewalk.
The employees at La Oxaqueña and Mission Street Liquor and Groceries said they received letters about cleaning up the gum in front of the businesses. Harry from La Oxaqueña said that they scrapped the gum off and wash it off with a pressure washer. This set him back $300 dollars.
Coincidentally, $300 is exactly how much it is going to cost Ismael Karagh, the owner of Farah Smoking Shop, to hire a company to clean his three storefronts.
“This is good for the companies that clean,” Karagh said.
Karagh said he tried to clean the sidewalk and showed a reporter a collection of chemicals he used while trying to clean up the sidewalk. None of them worked, he said.
Business owners were provided a number where they can call someone from the city to help business owners clean their sidewalk.
Karagh instead suggested that the city instead adopt a program in which business owners paid a monthly fee and the city cleans the sidewalks.
“If I pay to clean it up, when they inspect again its going to be back,” he said.
Either way, those who dispose of their gum on the sidewalk are leaving business owners in a sticky situation.
As for those gum chewers, who cause the issue to begin with, Harry of La Oxaqueña asks, “What can you do?”
I think it makes sense for the building or business owner to maintain the sidewalk. When someone farther away is responsible for something, it’s easier to just to let it go. It’s good to have responsibility be local, so that people take better care of their own neighborhoods, square by square. I imagine in earlier times, shopkeepers who were diligent would harangue people away from soiling their sidewalk. Added up, it makes for more awareness and a cleaner neighborhood. Currently, the Mission is filthy. More people feeling more responsible for more square footage of the public spaces would make cleaner public spaces.
Here’s an idea: Why not sentence people convicted of tagging to clean gum off sidewalks? I’d add, “and vice versa,” but no one is ever convicted of spitting gum on a sidewalk. Which brings up another question: If it’s not illegal to spit gum on a sidewalk, how can you fine store owners for not cleaning it off?
pretty hilarious they’re going after the gum and not the urine, feces and trash on the sidewalks.
still, whatever it takes to feel good about yourself because you’re doing something easy and pointless instead of addressing real problems, right ?
this is great! i hope SF enforces all these types of laws so that business owners will contribute to making the Mission a better place to live.
I remember by mom, who used to be a manager of a bank on Clement Street, was given a notice from the city to clean up the bird crap in front of the bank or else the bank gets fined. There are signs in Chinese and English to not to feed the birds, but folks still did it anyway.
The people that need to be fined are the folks making the mess.
”The City is responsible for the streets, and the businesses are responsible for the sidewalks. That’s how it works in San Francisco.”
If the City is so responsible for the streets, why are there craters on half the roads I drive on?
because the city has a gigantic deficit ie no money ?