Tenderloin Buzz: CVS has a change of heart, a neighborhood news site launches

The Tenderloin has a dearth of grocery stores and no pharmacies, and CVS, one of the two pharmacies at the neighborhood’s periphery, announced last week that it would be closing its store at 701 Van Ness Ave. at Turk Street in late February. But in a sudden reversal, CVS told Mission Local on Wednesday morning that it no longer plans to close. 

We asked for detail on this apparent change of heart, but spokesperson Roslyn Guarino only said that the CVS store will “NOT” [sic] close, and they “apologize for any confusion this change in direction may have caused.” 

Storage Star, a storage company with facilities across 11 states, is planning to open a 45,000-square-foot location at 799 Van Ness Ave. at Eddy Street, the historic building where the long-closed Mini Cooper dealership once operated. Mockups filed with the Planning Department include a street-level mural by a local artist on the outer façade. The San Francisco Heritage recommends the mural be a nod to Van Ness Avenue’s legacy as “auto row.” 

It may be too early to get excited about a filled vacancy. In 2018 and 2019, there were plans for the site to become a luxury gym, but that never panned out. 

Every two years, the city counts the people experiencing different levels of homelessness, and it’s that time again. On Thursday, Jan. 29, workers will take a count of people living on the streets or in shelters across the city. 

Some changes are being made to the process: This year, the count will happen in the morning instead of at night, and workers doing the count will concurrently conduct surveys, instead of returning on future days.

There is a new development in trans advocates’ years-long effort to reclaim the former Compton’s Cafeteria and site of the 1966 trans rights riot from GEO Group, the operators of a halfway house there.

The site at 111 Taylor St. has landmark designation, but the Historic Preservation Commission voted on Wednesday to expand that designation to include the entire building. Currently, the landmark status only applies to the public right of way at Turk and Taylor streets, and the lower exterior walls of the building. 

“Research and documentary evidence establish that the uprising originated inside the cafeteria, that Compton’s functioned as a significant site of transgender kinship, refuge and survival before the riot,” read the advocates’ application. “And that the building also housed a substantial transgender residential community in the Hyland Hotel above.”

A few of our journalism colleagues (read: friendly rivals) last week launched The Tenderloin Voice, a news outlet for and by the community, with a series of articles, poems, and photography. 

They say their approach is unique and “unorthodox” — former Mission Local and SF Public Press journalists Laura Wenus and Noah Arroyo, along with former SF Public Press colleague Daphne Magnawa will be reporting on what Tenderloin locals call for, but will also publish stories written by the people who live and work there. 

For now, the Tenderloin Voice is online, but we’ve peeped the prototype of their print zine, coming soon.

Many things move slowly in this city, but the action has been quick on getting a violence-prevention program up and running in the Tenderloin. We first reported Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s call for such a program in October in the form of a resolution, typically toothless appeals made at City Hall.

And already, the program operational: United Playaz, which does violence prevention in SoMA, has moved into a space at the Tenderloin Community Benefit District’s office next to the playground, and its kickoff event is expected by the first week of February. 

“People who grew up in the Tenderloin are running this program,” said Rudy Corpuz, the founder of United Playaz, who attributes the quick development of the program to the fact that it was community-led. “These are guys who were involved in the lifestyle, but now they’re on the other side of the gun.”