Of Human Bondage in the Mission

You didn't think the purchase of the armory by Kink.com would go through without a hitch would you? After all, the thing had stood vacant for thirty-six years and was the site of countless protests whenever somebody broached the idea of turning it into something. But after neighbors complained about not getting enough public input into the deal, from somewhere in Switzerland, Gavin asked the Planning Commission to hold some more public hearings on the matter. The hope, as Sam Ruiz, the executive director of Mission Neighborhood Centers, put it, is "to have a dialogue" about all of this and if we were playing that Project Drinking Connect drinking game, we'd be drinking right now.

There's a hitch in all of this in that there's really nothing anyone can do about it. It was a private sale so no public hearing was needed and as Kink.com doesn't plan on making any changes to the building, the planning commission has no say in it.

For his part, Kink.com owner Peter Acworth says he's looking forward to dialoguing and that he wants to be a good neighbor. To that end, he promises to try and keep the area clean, tighten security around the building, and help the local economy by hiring mainly local actors. He also promised to only make free trade coffee and only use ropes made out of hemp.

In a way, this whole thing is a very "Only in San Francisco" thing. Businesses and housing were no-no's but an S&M movie studio isn't. And it's always entertaining listening to people in San Francisco talk about the fact that it's a porn studio without sounding like they're making judgments about it. Expect lots of "not that there's anything wrong with it" to be heard in the community meeting.