Supervisor Eric Mar has set up a public meeting for this Friday to discuss the request filed by the Jack in the Box at Geary and 11th Avenue to get an after-hours operation permit. If approved, the permit would allow them to remain open from 2am until 6am every night, returning them to 24 hour operations.
Some residents are opposed to Jack in the Box remaining open 24 hours after a tragic hit-n-run accident occurred nearby on Thanksgiving morning. The fight leading up to the incident initially started in the Jack in the Box. Residents that live nearby complain the restaurant attracts the wrong crowd after the bars close at 2am, resulting in noise issues and a higher-than-normal volume of police calls.
One group has organized a petition and gathered over 1,000 signatures in opposition to Jack in the Box receiving their after-hours permit. After delaying the decision earlier this month, the Entertainment Commission is set to decide on the permit request at their January 24 meeting.
Still other residents want the Jack in the Box to get their permit back because it is one of the few 24 hour restaurants in the neighborhood.
Supervisor Eric Mar spoke at the January 10 Entertainment Commission meeting when the issue was first discussed. You can read his full statement here, which recommends “the increase of security guards to 7 days a week from 10pm-4am” and “adding a second guard for Friday and Saturdays to better patrol the parking lot and perimeter on evenings when more bar and late activity occurs”, along with other security improvements.
Jennifer Cunanan, a spokesperson for Jack in the Box, left a comment on one of our recent posts about the permit issue:
We recognize that late night nuisances are a problem in the neighborhood — largely due to drunk patrons from the nearby bars. It is a neighborhood problem, not just a Jack in the Box problem, and together with the nearby bars, restaurants, and businesses in the area we should cooperatively work together with Richmond District SFPD to improve safety and quietness in the late night/early morning hours. In general, San Francisco is a 24 hour city with not that many 24 hour eateries. As some customers came forward during the Hearing, they were happy to have a choice and an option of getting a fast hot meal during the odd hours of 2AM to 6AM, and never had a problem.
Friday’s public meeting will be held at the Richmond District Police Station in the Community Room beginning at 2pm. We have not received confirmation yet on whether representatives from Jack in the Box will be there, but we think it’s very likely.
Sarah B.
2pm on a weekday public meeting? Who can go other than people who would go to Jack in the Box late at night??? Those of us opposed to a 24 hour late-night hangout for drunken bar goers are at work at 2pm on Friday!
I am sorry to post such a long message. but I have been working (with many others)to improve the safety and other issues at Jack in the Box for almost a year, and the media’s coverage regarding the issue has, I believe, resulted in some misunderstandings about what is being requested and why.
I have heard a lot of talk about “closing down” this Jack in the Box. The residents who have circulated the petition have NOT asked that Mr. Khan be denied an after-hours permit. We are not even requesting that this Jack in the Box close from 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. (as I have also read).
We are requesting that Mr. Khan’s permit come with the condition that he close his location ONLY for 2 hours a day — from 2 a.m. – 4 a.m.
This is a compromise that we propose after having worked with Mr. Khan, the SFPD, and SF-SAFE for almost a year to improve the safety and reduce the “nuisance factor” at this locaton. I am glad that Supr. Mar has decided to join the discussion regarding this issue.
I believe it is an excellent one. I believe — as do the other residents and agencies/organizations that have been working on this problem — that closing for 2 hours at 2 a.m. will diffuse the situation, calm it and change patterns of behavior…without interrupting Mr. Khan’s early-morning breakfast business.
I want to make it VERY clear that Mr. Khan has been a good business neighbor. I want to do everything possible to help him stay profitably in business — as I believe the others who have been working with him on this issue do.
Mr. Khan has been extremely cooperative in every way as we have worked with him over the past many months. The incident started at JIB — but the assault occured at the Shell station a block away, not Jack in the Box.
So it is unspeakably sad that this horrific incident should have occured despite the efforts of the SFPD, residents of the Richmond district, SF-SAFE to prevent such a tragedy. But a resident of our neighborhood (29-years old, an ex-Marine, Cal state fireman, and father of a 2-yr old girl) is still battling for his LIFE — as he has been since Thanksgiving day.
For the residents of the Richmond district understand the problems that have been associated with this location for decades. The police’s own records — presented to me and other residents by a Lt. at the Richmond station)– show that last year the average was almost one call a DAY to the police.
New lighting and some security presence were helping — and we were hopeful. But the potential for more problems is clear to the 1700 Richmond residents who have signed a petition asking for daily closure from 2 am. – 4 a.m.
Ten years ago, two people who got into a beef at JIB at 2:15 in the morning when they were drunk would punch each other; now, guns are much more likely to be involved. Ensuring that someone has a place to buy french fries at 3 a.m. is NOT worth having another person — someone’s parent, child, sister or brother, or friend –seriously injured, maimed for life, or killed.
An after-hours license is an EXCEPTION to the rules governing the normal, legal operating hours for businesses in San Francisco. An afgter-hours license is a privilege.
Mr Khan operated 24-hours without the proper permit for many months before that was realized. He says did not know that the after-hours permit did not automatically transfer when he took over the franchise (it has to be reapplied for) . transferred when he took over the franchise.
I have no reason to doubt that was Mr. Khan’s believe — however, but just as I cannot tell a policeman who pulls me over that I didn’t know I couldn’t drive with an open bottle of whiskey and a loaded gun in my car, “ignorance of the law is not an excuse.”
I hope that the Entertainment Commission will grant Mr. Khan the privilege of operating after hours. I hope they will grant it with the caveat that he must close from 2 a.m. – 4 a.m. every morning — and will agree to review and re-evaluate the situation after one year.
If, at that time, police records and other factors show reason to believe that positive changes have occurred at the location, a permit to operate 24-hours a day could be issued to Mr. Khan.
That is the outcome I hope for — a “win” for Mr. Khan, for the residents of the Richmond district, for the SFPD — and for people who want to buy JIB food at 3 a.m.
.
apologies for errors
I see after posting — drafted this quiclky between 2 mtgs. this morning.
I have a feeling that if the bars on the lower avenues were closed for just one night, that night at Jack in the Box would be very quiet indeed.
The same would go for clearing out the indoor pot farms in the Richmond. Whatever your feelings on the legalization of pot, those who currently grow them in converted houses tend to be like their Mendocino peers–paranoid and dangerous.
We shouldn’t close the bars on the lower avenues for even a single night; many people’s livelihoods depend on them and many people come to these bars from throughout the neighborhood and the city and spend money. The solution is to monitor or close that Jack in the Box during the hours of 2-4 am. Actually agree with Susan.
Well, wait a minute here. You just can’t dismiss the problems created by the local bar scene because they’re economically important. If they’re creating drunks that then spill out into the neighborhood and cause problems (and Captain Sanford recently acknowledged that in the Richmond PD newsletter), they’re being socially irresponsible and likely operating in violation of local and state liquor laws. Economically important or not, these places need to be held accountable. Closing the Jack in the Box without addressing the root cause of the problem still leaves you with the same number of obnoxious drunks.
The Jack in the Box is not the source of the problem, the bar scene in the Inner Richmond is.
Dear 5-1-0,
I want the Richmond district to have a strong business community, including lots of places for people to go and enjoy themselves at night — including late at night.
There are laws that require bars and liquor stores to conduct their business responsibly — e.g. not serving people who are already obviously intoxicated, etc. If they are not acting in accordance with the laws governing their business, they should be reported (I can post the number of who to call – -just don’t have it with me at this moment), and the problems will be investigated and monitored in conjunction with the local police station.
Drinking alcohol makes people less inhibited, and it makes some people argumentative and violent. The problem appears to be that a group of one type of people will go to one bar, and a group of another type of people will frequent a different bar. Each group is fine when they are together…but when they encounter each other in a small space, after they’ve been drinking — unfortunate things happen.
This isn’t happening because it’s a Jack in the Box or because it serves a particular type of food — it happens because it is the closest place for patrons of about a dozen (or more) bars and clubs on Geary and Clement to get inexpensive food quickly.
That is why a large and diverse group of people think that closing that locaton from 1-4 a.m. — and seeing if that helps — would be the best idea at the moment.
superviser mar has been a embarasment for a long time and where is there a mcdonald in the Richmond district? I signed the pitition and now he just ignore thousands of people who vote for him?
here is news story about him on The daily show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nl8enO7cKA
Id like to know why he change his mind.
I look hard on the Daily shows website but cant find the vid. Seems funny. did eric Mar make them take it away?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-3-2011/san-francisco-s-happy-meal-ban?xrs=share_copy