Called out to investigate and odd smell and found two.

update: Dec, 2, 9:46 p.m.

How long it lasts.
How long it lasts.

It remains.

Earlier post

Pedestrians hardly took notice as they walked by the large dump in the middle of the sidewalk on Mission Street near Walgreens.

However, one of the firemen called out early Monday afternoon to investigate a suspicious, gas-like smell, thought that the pile of brown crap in the middle of the sidewalk could be the problem.

Firemen investigating two odd smells.
Firemen investigating two odd smells.

If it wasn’t, the problem  it was one of several the manager of Walgreens on the corner of 23rd and Mission Streets had to deal with this afternoon.

The other, was a gas-like smell someone had called about. Inside Walgreens, it smelled less like gas and more like burning rubber.

An employee said that workers were cleaning the drains. A fireman, who declined to give his name, said the smell was probably “pipe dope” or water from a sprinkler system that became stagnant and started to smell.

By 1:30 p.m., Anthony Stewart, the manager at Walgreens, had called the Department of Public Works to pick up the mess on the sidewalk outside. The firemen, satisfied with their investigation, left.  All will soon be well. Or not. (Update: At 3:30 p.m. DPW had not arrived.)

And no, we can’t be sure if the waste in the middle of the sidewalk was caused by a human or an enormous dog. One person nearby said the culprit “left,” but that was obvious and it was unclear if the person had actually watched the crime.

A hot dog vendor further north on Mission street said he had not seen anything. And right there, it smelled quite wonderful.

This has been your Afternoon Report—a new series we’re trying out in which we offer a quickie post-meridian rundown of some minor developments in the always-happening streets of the Mission District. Got ideas or suggestions? Let us know what you think by sending an email to info@missionlocal.com.

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Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

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