Ferry captains, Irish bars, and the 415

Good afternoon! A few items for this chilly Monday:

• The captains don’t want to be bosses––that’s the news from yesterday’s picket line at Pier 33. Six months after the Alcatraz Union was officially certified as a union, its contract with Alcatraz City Cruises is stalled. At issue is the company’s insistence on classifying its roughly 10 captains and maintenance supervisors as managers, thereby leaving them out of the union.

Workers say captains are “leaders,” but they are definitely not supervisors. “We’re trying to get equal benefits for all of our employees,” said Brian Dobruck, who’s spent the last 10 years as a captain at Alcatraz. “And we’d like to be one of those employees represented by the union here.” Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who joined the ferry workers at the pier, agreed: “The captains are inextricably a part of this organization,” he said,”and they must be at the table.”

• In case you missed it, Napper Tandy, the longstanding Irish bar on the corner of 24th Street and South Van Ness, has plans. The bar’s owners have applied for a permit to demolish the one-story building next to them and erect a new, three-story building. They propose two market-rate rental apartments on the second and third floors, and two new ground-floor retail spaces. Currently the building next to the Irish bar houses J. Jewelers and Shine Little Diamond; Napper Tandy’s owners said they intend for the 32-year-old Latino-owned J.Jewelers to return after construction. The jeweler, Edgardo Campos, told Mission Local that “overall, I support [the plan].”

But before the demolition and any construction, the project first needs city approval. On Wednesday, April 26, the Zoning Administrator will decide whether to grant permission to nix the required rear yard space and substitute a roof garden– just the first in a number of steps for the project.

• You did miss 415 Day–– but read our story about the celebration of “Resistance, Resilience and Restitution” that took place with no permitting, no city or corporate sponsors and no police. “Frisco culture is the mix — from the Chicano movement and muralism to the hyphy era and beatniks, it’s all evolved into our identity as BIPOC Frisco natives,” said Mission native and muralist Lucía González Ippolito. Riding trash cans down hills, hanging out on the stoop, taking the 14 at night: It’s all about community, says graphic designer Celine Lota, who grew up in the 4-1-5. “There’s a saying,” she added. “People move to New York to be somebody. People move to LA to be somebody else. But if you want to just be yourself, you move to San Francisco.”

More soon,

Sara