Black Fillmore community members gathered Sunday afternoon to formulate a plan to save one of their neighborhood’s mainstays: A Safeway grocery store.
Safeway abruptly announced last week that it would close the 40-year-old store at 1335 Webster St. between Geary Boulevard and Ellis Street in March, upsetting many in the neighborhood who depend on the store for groceries and use the bank and pharmacy within.
In a part-history lesson, part-sermon and part-strategy session, some 30 people who gathered in person Sunday at the Third Baptist Church, plus others attending virtually, decided to form a coalition to meet with Safeway and negotiate the closure.
Under the leadership of the Rev. Amos Brown, the group scattered among the church pews also unanimously voted to explore legal action against the grocery chain and potential land trusts to protect the contentious property at the heart of the historically Black neighborhood.
“This bomb was dropped on us,” said Brown, the head of the NAACP’s San Francisco branch. Like others at the meeting, he criticized Safeway’s sudden announcement of its closure without considering community needs; the store is the only full-service grocery store in the neighborhood.
Brown said he received an email on Thursday, informing him of the store’s imminent closure, with no explanation of why. Safeway said the 3.68 acre lot would be sold to a developer for new housing and some commercial space.
District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, who also attended the meeting, said he, too, was surprised by the news on Thursday.
A statement sent to Preston’s office from a Safeway spokesperson gives no reason for the store’s departure. “San Francisco has struggled with housing shortages, and Safeway sees this as an opportunity to positively impact the community and be part of a solution to bring much needed additional housing to the City,” it reads.
But community members seemingly disagreed, and Preston called the abrupt closure “unconscionable.” He announced that he would introduce a resolution at this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting for his fellow board members to take a stand against it.
“We’re going to insist that they publicly rescind the closure plan, and meet with community leaders and city leaders,” Preston said. He said that, even if a developer were to build on the land, Safeway could stay, as they would likely not break ground for many months. After redevelopment, a grocery store could still operate on the ground floor, he said.
Preston added that CVS reversed its sudden decision to close its Lower Haight store last month, after extensive outreach.
“We pushed back hard. Community members pushed back hard,” Preston said. “We got them to change course … So I hope we can do that here as well.”
Preston’s legislative aide, Preston Kilgore, said that the supervisor’s office has already reached out to both Safeway and the developer, Align Real Estate, for a meeting.
Brown said that the Fillmore community has tried to work with Safeway regarding issues with crime and homelessness in the area, but the company refused to engage.
“They never intended to be a good corporate citizen partner here,” Brown said. “So. What are we going to do about it?”
Several members of the audience volunteered to serve on the coalition to begin pushing back on the company. Attendees made different suggestions, such as bringing a class action lawsuit against Safeway or collaborating with the company to develop a housing complex with a ground-floor grocery for the community.
“The problem is, they did that with community partnership down in L.A., and they also included local jobs,” said De’Anthony Jones, a youth development worker for the city, referring to a new Costco with an affordable housing complex coming to Los Angeles. So far, it is unclear what Align Real Estate, the developer that has agreed to purchase the lot from Safeway, intends to do with the mixed-use space; it has not indicated that any of the new homes would be affordable, or what type of business might occupy the commercial space.
The lot, and the Fillmore, have had a history of gentrification, redlining and exclusionary practices. Between the 1940s and 1970s, the city razed purportedly blighted — and historically Black and immigrant-owned — businesses in the neighborhood as part of “redevelopment,” then blocked the neighborhood’s large Black population from buying land there, ultimately contributing to an exodus of Black people from the neighborhood.
Brown and his colleague, the Rev. Arnold Townsend, discussed this history on Sunday, and how various Black developers were told decades ago that they could not build housing on the lot where Safeway now stands. Eventually, Brown said, the Safeway was “pushed upon” the neighborhood, but the company was never the friendly, job-providing neighbor that it was portrayed as in the 1980s.
“I have been in this town for 56 years, and Safeway has been probably the worst community partners you would ever know,” Townsend said. The store has been known more recently for closing its self-checkout registers, and blasting classical music into the parking lot to deter loitering. “They had good times in that store but, now that times are tough, they abandon us.”
This is the same Amos Brown most recently seen threatening a local restaurant owner because of that man’s rap video online.
Brown has zero credibility. If he wanted Safeway to stay, as a “community leader” he could have lifted a finger to help reduce shoplifting there.
Why not open your own grocery store? See how that goes.
In addition to the many hats Arnold Townsend wears, 2 being lead apologist for London Breed and Lead Redistricting Task Force Gerrymanderer, Townsend is a realtor. In 2017, when the 139 mostly African American families living at Midtown (in the Western Addition) went on a rent strike in opposition to the Mayor’s Office of Housing’s looming demolition of and mismanagement of their homes, Arnold Townsend and Amos Brown didn’t lift a finger to help them. You know who did? Dean Preston and he wasn’t even D5’s Supervisor yet. Guess who was D5 Supervisor then? London Breed. She no showed to 2 community meetings and also wouldn’t lift a finger or use the power of her office and voice to help her own constituents.
True ’nuff! Breed was rarely seen in D5 during her tenure as supe, while Preston personally meets with tenants at their buildings.
Dean also makes sure Japantown doesn’t get any supportive housing and keeps new apartments out of the city to make sure tenants stay miserable!
Complaning about them while asking them not to leave reminds me ofthe old joke: “The food is terrible! And the portions are too small!”
Preston should open a store himself and deal with all the crap a merchant in SF deals with.I doubt he can force a business to stay open.That is unconstitutional. Remember Preston said no more evictions in his district. He makes up the rules or law as he wants.Breed is pro development of large hideous buildings.Let her open a store and actually do some work.
No, actually Sup. Preston is advocating for his constituents. This neighborhood has seen worse days. The store serves thousands of low-income seniors of color, who have shopped there for decades.
What’s your skin in the game? Vague libertarian grievance?
It’s really hard to even comment on the impact of this closing, unless you know the history of this neighborhood.
This documentary is excellent: https://www.pbs.org/kqed/fillmore/learning/story.html
High recommend.
It’s not hard. Black people are currently and historically marginalized. It sucks that the only grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood is leaving. It further marginalizes the people of this neighborhood and makes living in the Fillmore much less accessible. Regardless, knowing the history is still useful.
Part of “knowing the history” is knowing that 75% of those displaced by redevelopment in that area were not black.
There is a Target, a Trader Joes, a Lucky and another Safeway within a mile or so of there, plus a bunch of corner food stores.
San Francisco has an ordinance that if grocery store occupies more than 5,000 sq ft it requires a conditional use approval to change to any other use. Almost always, the planning commission votes with the district supervisor’s desire. Supervisor’s never want to lose a grocery store in their district. For example, this grocery store location in Bayview is an obvious failure having been through national chains and independent operators but the supervisor will lose constituent support if he allows it to vacate (https://hoodline.com/2019/03/duc-loi-s-city-funded-bayview-market-is-closed-faces-unclear-future/). With Preston being as far left of left and this being such a large underutilized site it will be interesting to see how the planning commissioners line up with him here.
The city’s insane planning commission hijinks over multiple decades has led to the state reducing that comission’s discretionary powers. The most relevant question is whether the planning commission will even be allowed to legally vote on the matter in a year (or 2 months).
When I lived in BVHP we had a Safeway on Williams. It was a year before I read the fine print to learn that most of the packaged meats were expired or nearly expired. I couldn’t believe Safeway would have entire refrigerators of expired meat. Same with dairy products. My neighbors explained that Safeway trucked its old food to Williams but the prices were the same as at other locations. I asked the store manager but he worried about complaining to the executives because the store also had a
the highest “inventory loss” rate. It closed before district supervisors were reinstated in SF. Supervisor Maxwell negotiated with every developer and was unable to entice an operator. We even wished we could get a Whole Foods so we could complain about high prices while we shopped there. 30 years hence, it’s still hard to buy groceries in BVHP. Good luck, Dean Preston.
“ ‘I have been in this town for 56 years, and Safeway has been probably the worst community partners you would ever know,’ Townsend said.”
Wow, that ought to convince them to stay.
I, for one, am shocked that an $8 billion public company did not ask Amos Brown or Dean Preston for permission to make this business transaction. Now that I think about it, they didn’t ask me for permission either! smh
I don’t live in the Western Addition, but, until I became less mobile, I used to shop there often via Muni. A lot of seniors who live in Lower Pacific Heights also shop there, as the only other market in the area is the high mark-up Mollie Stone’s. As one other commenter pointed out, the city doesn’t need more unaffordable apartments. I think they should consider reducing the parking lot size, perhaps building apartments on top of a new parking structure, that would serve both the tenants and the marketgoers.
Vacancy is nearly back to its pre-COVID rate therefore these apartments ARE being afforded – else they would be empty
https://nainorcal.com/san-francisco-market-report-march-2023/
all kidding aside. safeway does not seem to know how important it is to have a store at that location. many elderly people, myself including, have to walk with a granny cart to go shopping. when and if this store closes, it will truly be a hardship. Please dont say that trader joes is coming. That is not a real store. Its for dilletante shoppers who pick and chose what to microwave at home. Its not real grocery shopping.
How about a Berkeley Bowl West or something similar? Reasonable prices, good selection community oriented.
The City needs to clone Rainbow Grocery’s cooperative DNA and capitalize a community based coop to take over from Safeway. We need to feed our neighbors who live here now and who have been subjected to the worst abuses of government before we think about accommodating newcomers.
We have Safeway as our next door neighbor (not the Webster St store), and their corporate people are useless when issues arise. The Albertson’s merger was a horrible thing for Safeway and I would expect that it will continue to close city locations without any community input. Most of us would love to get rid of the store near us and have housing instead.
We don’t need anymore apartment buildings in SF that most people can’t afford, I don’t know where people living in the Fillmore will go to shop for food!
They can go to the new Trader Joes when it is ready for shop lifting and they can upgrade their culinary tastes at the same time.
There is a huge shortage of apartments in San Francisco, as confirmed by multiple state laws and studies by leading researchers from across the country. Obviously developers only build apartments people can afford because otherwise they’d lose money on their projects.