Results tagged “northbeach”

Comedy.com complied a list of the 20 worst bars in the U.S. Among them is "Bow Wow’s Cocktail Lounge." Tastefully described as "a Vietnamese whorehouse," the North Beach institute wins a spot on the unsavory list mainly because of the Yelp reviews it's garnered.

After City Attorney Dennis Herrera asked the city to shutdown Heaven Mini Theatre for performing lapdances without the proper permits (not to mention allowing prostitution inside its doors, just like every other SF hoochie-coochie establishment), the club owner is crying foul. Peter Lambertson claims that his North Beach club is being targeted since they're not playing ball with supposed SFPD blackmailing tactics and city-sanctioned kickback requests.

Like a comet, or a certain Venetian art fair, the San Francisco International Poetry Festival only comes around every two years, and the second biennial fest kicks off tomorrow with a party in Jack Kerouac Alley in North Beach and the gathering of poets from two dozen countries. The festival will be co-hosted by San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane DiPrima and Poet Laureate Emeritus Jack Hirschman, and a special honor will be given to another Poet Laureate Emeritus, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who'll be reading at the main stage event on Friday at the Palace of Fine Arts). Though that's the official kickoff, there is actually a screening tonight at Koret Auditorium at USF of a documetary about Jack Hirschman directed by Matthew Furey. All the festival's events are listed here, so for all you frustrated haiku composers out there, you might want to go have a listen to some masters.

Two men were shot inside Impala, a Broadway nightclub frequented by types who still think bottle service is cool, at around 1:15 a.m. this morning. According to 's cover story this week on "the failures of the San Francisco Entertainment Commission to adequately regulate violent clubs." Oops. Rightfully livid about this morning's violent shooting, Sam Young, owner of the nearby Dragon Bar, shot off a cross email to City Hall this morning, saying, "This should come as no surprise since I stated numerous times that this would happen ... As usual, City Hall does absolutely nothing and now there is another shooting, which could have and should have been prevented."

             

by Moses Namkung

Mark Doty, winner of the 2008 National Book Award for poetry , was (allegedly) verbally harassed last week over in North Beach. After an evening of dinner, chocolate-orange gelato, and Taha Mohammed Ali, there was an altercation on Columbus after an elderly man was trying to get into his car. Some crazy lady lost her mind, got into a altercation with Doty. According to his blog, "the woman behind the wheel glared at me, flipped me off, glared some more, then called me a "fucking faggot." And then? It get good. The lady runs into some other restaurant, then Doty and his partner are chased by "two six-foot guys," and, well, you can read the rest of it here. Update: Uh oh. Yelpers are on the case.

At around 1 a.m this morning, a man was shot and killed just outside North Beach bar Fuse. According to reports, the unidentified man had a few drinks, walked outside and returned later, "only to be shot twice in the back as he tried to re-enter the club." Once he stumbled back into the club, all chaos broke loose. A bartender tried to perform CPR, but the man was "pronounced dead about an hour later at San Francisco General Hospital." Word has it the man also might have known his assailant. No arrests have been made. Update: The victim has been identified by medical examiners as Richard Barrett, 29. who was "trying to run from the men when he was shot." Brazen.

We’re well off Broadway — actually, we’re just off Lombard — in the toppermost reaches of North Beach. In fact, we’re not far from where the old neighborhood abuts the landfilled tourist stronghold that stole North Beach’s shore years ago. It’s OK — we’re safe here from Crazy Shirts etc., although there’s a Bay Quackers vessel rolling by a few steps away over on Columbus. A moment later, an artist — shirtless, but sleeved — emerges for a smoke from Tattoo City at Mason and Lombard on this pleasant spring afternoon. He spots the amphibious truck carting visitors up North Beach’s diagonal commercial drag and can’t disguise a mild scoff. San Francisco loves its visitors from Cincinnati and beyond; it just gets a bit hrumphy when groups of them venture south of Bay St. in bright yellow military transport vehicles dating from World War II. Perhaps it’s not such an unfair reaction. But today, that debate’s beyond our scope and interest. We’ve landed on this residential block around the corner from Joe DiMaggio North Beach Playground and Pool, and we’re totally looking for action on a sunny Saturday. We find it: live music, street retail, plenty of pedestrian traffic, even a preening housepet.

This philosophic message/challenge adorning/"besmirching" Caffe Trieste's bathroom wall in North Beach last November comes to us from Seven Morris via the "sfist" and "found" tags.

It looks like Survivor: Cook Island winner Yul Kwon won't get to serve you air-pumped, sugary, dairy-like deliciousness. After getting ready to set up a Red Mango chain in North Beach, and after being granted a building permit and signing a lease, his permit was pulled after he was "told he ran afoul of the strict North Beach ordinance against 'formula chain' stores," or so says the Gate. Kwon went on to say, "I sorely regret the day that I decided to open a restaurant in San Francisco, and I will never make that mistake again." Ouch. True and choice words, Puka Puka tribesman.

• Phil Bronstein steps down as editor. Say what? [SFGate]
• Julius Castle closes amid allegations of fraud, misrepresentation, and lease issues. [Tablehopper]
• 1015 gets a (much-needed) makeover, will feature live bands. Well, it's about time. [SF Weekly]

Mayor Gavin Newsom says that one of his "top priorities is to ensure that every San Franciscan has a safe and happy New Year. Riding Muni is a smart and green way to ring in the new year." (Thanks, Gavin!) And with a firm flick of his wrist, this New Year's Eve, starting at 8 p.m., Muni will be free all night, which is about what it's worth. The free rides come to a screeching halt at 6 a.m., Tuesday, January 1.

When Francis Ford Coppola isn't looking lovingly over his cineaste dynastic family, running a cafe, publishing fiction, or distilling making wine [sorry! we're not a vintner!], we understand that sometimes he makes movies too. Where does that guy find the time??

In North Beach fights breakout and mild vandalism occurs after bars close at 2 a.m. This chaos, typical for any city, makes some of our sensitive city dwellers cranky before bedtime. Or whatever. So, the City Planning Commissioners somehow got it into their heads that closing pizza parlors on the the Broadway strip, pizzerias that normally stay open until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., before 2 a.m. will solve a slew of problems. According to the Examiner:

-- Laura Gibson: We'd hate to genre-ize her lovely sounds, but neo-folk songstress Gibson -- who uses such tools as trumpet, viola, and musical saw in addition to her sublime vocal cords-- sings delicate siren songs that will have you crashing at her feet. She performs along with Musee Mechanique (Portland) and Snowblink starting at 8 p.m. at Rickshaw Stop; $8.

Among San Francisco’s myriad neighborhoods, few are as widely misunderstood as the Outer Sunset. Location certainly plays a role. To your average Upper Haight resident – to say nothing of your average South of Market or North Beach resident – this beach-adjacent community may seem as distant as Honolulu, with an N-Judah trip that may rival a flight to Oahu in terms of travel time. But it’s sometimes easy to forget that San Francisco is a mere seven miles wide, and that the folks out west do have phone numbers that begin with 415, rather than 808.

Owner of the now-closed hungry i -- which booked such talent as Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Mort Sahl, Bill Cosby, and the Kingston Trio, to name a few -- and the beloved Enrico's, Enrico Banducci, died in his sleep this morning at 85.

Photo of Blue Angels practice

Cover your eyes fellow progressives. We're about to get even faggier.

Seeing as how they have nothing else going on, this week the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on a city proclamation honoring John Barleycorn Pub, calling for its preservation. The bar is set to close, and as already mentioned on Yelp, your local watering hole plays a large part in the aesthetics and feel of a neighborhood, so it's a good idea to pay attention to when these things start closing down around you.

Film Night in the Park Union Square

Ann Sherry's North Beach mural "Gold Mountain," a work that depicts Chinese influence to San Francisco and American history, fell victim to hooligan defacing. Specifically, the recent addition of Betty Ong, a San Francisco flight attendant who died in the World Trade Center attacks.

Bad series of news items for the SFPD -- the rookie cop who accidentally shot himself at a party earlier this month when trying to demonstrate tips on gun safety was legally drunk (just barely), that cop, Jesse Serna, who keeps (allegedly) beating up people like Barry Bonds' trainer and Willie Brown's friends in North Beach just got the city sued again, this time for beating up a doctor starting his residency at Harvard (whose case was previously profiled by the Chron.)

After Supervisor Sandoval introduced a resolution to brand hyperbolic grandpa Michael Savage as a hate speech-spewing loon, it wasn't voted on unanimously yesterday, care of SFsit's favorite coverboy, Ed Jew. (Ah, World Net Daily, where we go to get all of our fair and balanced news, drizzled with a infusion of organic Nazism.) On July 5, after Savage predictably asked that students undergoing a weeklong fast for immigration reform (and, bonus, to slim down...

-- KrOB'S Film Farm -- Faust (1994): Jan Švankmajer's version of Faust, using Goethe's and Christopher Marlowe's tales as well as heaps of surrealism, screens tonight at 8 p.m. at Chez Poulet, Cesar Chavez (Army) and Mission Streets; free.

! Cover article: A guy who makes money suing small businesses under the ADA. A review of the Kiki & Herb show. The Simpsons movie is okay. Meredith didn't much like her North Beach wine bar. Why did political cartoonist Ted Rall get moved to the food listings? Let's Get Killed reviews the Pamela des Barres book, feels ambivalent about it. And Savage Love: "is this a weird fetish?" (The lady's clapping on a date story was pretty funny.)

Every tale about the band Slint begins with retrospect. A couple guys who’d known each other a long time got together in Louisville, KY, to make a band named after a goldfish. On their second album they created one of the greatest LPs in rock music, Spiderland. They came through Bimbo’s in North Beach last Monday.