Opposing Whole Foods

The efforts of this group, the self-styled "Haight Street Improvement Association", have centered on a proposed 62-unit condo development with a Whole Foods on its ground floor at Haight & Stanyan. Unsurprisingly, the real local organizations (Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council and Haight Street Merchant's Association) oppose this development. Here's a few reasons why:

The Haight already has plenty of grocery stores.

Within one mile of Haight & Stanyan are all of the following:

• Cole Foods
• Alpha Market
• Haight Street Market
• Delessio Market & Bakery
• Ashbury Market
• Roxie Market & Deli
• Real Foods
• Lucky's supermarket

If anything, the Haight has too many grocery stores already! In addition, the first six stores on that list are all locally owned proprietorships ... which Whole Foods will likely put out of business, degrading the neighborhood and decreasing the city tax base.

Haight & Stanyan offers no place for a safe parking garage exit.

Condos mean car owners. And car owners mean entering & exiting underground parking. Further, the average Whole Foods customer will not be a local shopping on foot, but be someone from the Sunset or the Richmond driving in to shop.

Both Haight and Stanyan are extremely narrow streets which carry multiple bus lines. There is simply nowhere the developer can build a parking entrance and exit which won't significantly block traffic, delay buses and cause accidents.

The Haight is an international tourist destination because of its unique character and history.

As much as some people would prefer to see the Haight turn into a copy of the Marina, that's not why hundreds of thousands of tourists annually come to visit. They want to see the site of the Summer of Love. They want funky, strange locally owned businesses. Will people come from Indiana, Japan and Norway to visit a Whole Foods, a Hot Topic and a Wells Fargo? Not likely ...
and those tourist dollars contribute a *lot* to San Francisco's economy.