San Francisco Citizen

Well, it’s not much yet, but this is the biggest reaction I’ve seen so far to the relatively new Whole Foods outlet at the end of Haight Street near Stanyan.

Do you see this Kramer-esque sign hanging off the back of 1965 Page? It’s new.

See?

Click to expand

Cf. Cosmo Kramer vs. Kenny Rogers Roasters, Inc.

Now I don’t know what these NIMBYs paid for that sign but I’d imagine something like hundreds of dollars. Most passersby weren’t aware of it, cause of how and where it’s hung. But go to the northeast corner of the parking lot and then look northeast and you’ll be sure to find it. (WF employees were doing just that yesterday afternoon, having a laugh.)

MisssAnthrope49 has the details on YouTube.

And I guess that this is the FaceBook page?

“Whole Foods Inc Bad Neighbor ” “This page is for those who have unresolved neighborhood noise issues with Whole Foods Markets, Inc. Please share your experience, links, pictures, videos. Invite others, anywhere in the universe. Support your local markets.”

(You don’t have a website yet, NIMBYs?)

Now, I’ll tell you, the parking lot at this Whole Foods fills up with regularity, cause it’s too small. (And that’s just the way “the neighbors” or the Planning Department or somebody wanted it to be. By design.) So I don’t know how the people who wanted a small parking lot have the right to complain about a small parking lot. Anyway, the way Trader Joes Masonic handled the parking issue was to take over parking spaces on the right side of southbound Masonic in partnership with the City. (I mean, first you’ve got to exist, and then you can address the issues what pop up, that’s how you’ve got to do it.)

The parking lot attendants at this particular WF will direct shoppers into non-existent spots in front of the store, you know, in order to pack the largest number of cars into the lot. Of course there are signs telling drivers not to block Stanyan, but nobody pays attention to them.

We’ll just have to wait to see how this one turns out.

In the meantime, meet your new NIMBY neighbors, so far:

Susan Leas LathamLeda Nevin AguirreHolly EdsonSoumyaa Kapil BehrensJohnson HorTed DeLongVanessa PictonGabriel HaalandKenneth HeikkilaFran GentryLoraine Cruz CummingsDarlene PolankaMichelleNoel WelchElizabeth KirchnerRichard IvanhoeDickie Clark

Oh, and here’s something that people actually noticed, back in the day, on Stanyan:

This building on Stanyan can be seen from all over, so it would be a better location to launch an anti-grocery store campaign, IMO.

Oh well.

And nascent NIMBY’s, the time to attack Progress is before the gro sto goes in. I mean, did you expect the parking lot to be empty all the time? Did you expect the food to be teleported in via Wonka-Vision?

Oh well.

To close, here are some palliative cliches from Whole Foods itself:

“Sent: Thu, August 25, 2011 7:02:26 PM
Subject: RE: HVAC at 690 Stanyan Street

Susan,
Whole Foods Market Haight Street store has received your concerns regarding HVAC noise. We take all our neighbors’ concerns and questions seriously and work to accommodate requests whenever and wherever possible. The neighborhood we serve is extremely important to us and we want to be a good community member.  We had our HVAC service company come to double check that all the adjustments that we have made the past few months were still up to par . There were only two minor adjustments needed.

While we are within the legal limits for noise required by the city, Whole Foods Market Haight has made many adjustments in response to HVAC inquiries, including:
o   We reprogrammed the HVAC system to shut down between 8PM and 8AM to reduce noise when people are home
o   We also changed our thermostat settings two degrees lower so the heat would kick on later in the morning
o   We installed sound dampening devices on all our rooftop condensing fans
o   We had our own acoustic, electric and HVAC engineers come out to test and fine tune our system for noise reduction and ensure we were within our legal limits
o   Additionally, we had the Department of Public Health Environmental  Services come back out to re-test and ensure we were operating within the legal limits

While the adjustment to any new neighbor may take some time, we truly hope we can peacefully co-exist with our neighbors in the Haight”