In 2008, with empty storefronts and boarded up restaurants blighting once-beautiful Union Street, merchants went to then-District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and asked her to help lift the street’s outdated restaurant moratorium. Chestnut Street was thriving with new restaurants popping up on what seemed like a weekly basis, and Alioto-Pier agreed that Union Street was shackled by the moratorium. In January of 2009, the ban was lifted to allow five new restaurants and five self-service food sites to open in former retail-only spaces. At the time, Bob Bardell, who has lived in the area for nearly 30 years and is president of the Golden Gate Valley Neighborhood Association, told the Wall Street Journal that the dining scene on Union Street was “grim,” stating, “We don’t have any interesting restaurants.”

Since the moratorium was lifted, that has changed and, much to the merchants’ delight, business on Union Street is picking up again. A walk on a recent sunny day down Union Street between Laguna and Fillmore Streets revealed happy revelers eating, drinking and socializing at the outdoor and open-air patios of long-time staples like Perry’s, La Cucina and Betelnut, as well as at newer spots like Cafe Des Amis, The Brixton, Roam Burgers, and Nettie’s Crab Shack. There are, in fact, 18 restaurants on Union Street sporting outdoor or open-air patios, and all will benefit from overflow crowds at the 35th annual Union Street Festival June 4 and 5 – especially since this year the festival itself won’t serve booze. There will be a notable exception, however: the patio at the Brick Yard, located at 1787 Union Street between Gough and Octavia Streets, will be closed during the festival for the second year in a row because a few noisy neighbors have been filing complaints and appeals to keep it that way.

The Brick Yard’s owners are a varied group of professionals, including Darren Matte, a former finance manager for Procter and Gamble; Logan Shedd, who once worked as a banker at Wells Fargo on Union Street; Cameron Baird, a commercial real estate broker; Roman Alpert, a private equity financial advisor; and Sam Landrum, a former police officer and Wells Fargo financial advisor. All were excited about taking over the old Bayside, a favorite Marina-Cow Hollow watering hole among sports fans that had been shuttered and falling apart for two years. The group invested significantly in a complete interior renovation (which it badly needed); they also upgraded the kitchen and brought in a respected chef (who trained with culinary icon Thomas Keller) to focus on serving quality food with an emphasis on local, sustainable ingredients. Since opening in June 2010, the Brick Yard has created 50 new jobs and helped local nonprofits raise over $40,000 by hosting fundraisers.

Brick Yard Patio Remains Empty
But one thing is still missing: a 9 foot by 14 foot patio with seating for 12. The patio was actually approved by the Planning Commission Feb. 2, 2010; however, a neighbor filed for a discretionary review based on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and a department oversight (the Planning Department hadn’t notify neighbors). Nearly a year later, at the review hearing on Jan. 20, 2011, the Planning Commission indicated it had received just eight letters opposing the project, and unanimously approved the patio again, correcting the oversight and stating the case was exempt from CEQA because it met the same criteria as other patios up and down Union Street.

It only takes one person to file such a discretionary review. In the Brick Yard’s case, that person was Skye Czember who, with her husband Jerry, has owned the building across the street at 1782 Union for 20 years. The Czembers, along with Megan Chechile, a tenant in the building next door to theirs, and several neighborhood watchdogs (including the above-mentioned Bardell and Patricia Vaughey, president of the Marina-Cow Hollow Neighbors and Merchants Association), have been critical of the Brick Yard from the start. At one of the first community meetings about the property, Czember said she had lived harmoniously with the Bayside and its 50-square-feet of open windows for 15 years, but after two years of vacancy would rather see the building remain boarded up.

Unhappy with the Planning Commission’s Jan. 20 vote in favor of the Brick Yard patio, the small opposition group forced the issue to the Board of Supervisors where, on May 24, 2011, the Brick Yard was handed another unanimous victory.

You’d think that after losing before the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors the opponents would drop it, but you’d be wrong. They will now take the issue before the Board of Appeals in late June – and once again, the Brick Yard will not have a patio for the Union Street Festival.

I have a few problems with the complaints emanating from Czember’s camp, the first being that the space in question has been a restaurant-bar for three decades, including the raucous pick-up joint Margaritaville and the Sun Grove, where regulars were rumored to snort cocaine off the tables. No one moves to Union Street expecting peace and quiet – it reminds me of when the nouveau riche dot-com workers of the late 1990s snapped up lofts near the venerable bars and clubs in the ultra-hip South of Market district and wanted them to keep the noise down. If you want quiet, move to the country – or to Grass Valley, as Skye and Jerry Czember did. That’s right – the main instigators of the wrangling against the Brick Yard, which continues to suck up our city’s resources, don’t even live here on a full-time basis. A records search in May 2011 revealed the Czembers’ current permanent residence is in Grass Valley, Calif.  Voter records and the White Pages also list the couple as residents of Grass Valley. In fact, 1782 Union Street has not been the Czembers’ full-time address since 1999.

Further, the Brick Yard falls below allowable ambient noise levels. An inspector visited on a Saturday night with a packed house and the sound readings from across the street – with all doors and windows at the Brick Yard wide open – were in the 50s to low 60s. The average for Union Street as a whole is 75 decibels. Still, the Brick Yard’s owners voluntarily agreed to keep the two panels on the east side fixed at all times, install a retractable angled canvas awning to provide additional sound dampening, not request sidewalk seating to reduce the number of guests on the exterior of the premises, and to close the patio at 10 p.m. Other bars and restaurants on Union Street, including the Bar None, the Blue Light, the Bus Stop, Perry’s, and the newly opened Brixton, stay open until 2 a.m. on some or all nights. When the Marina Times office was on Union Street and I’d be stuck working deadline into the wee hours, I frequently saw drunks stumble by at 2 a.m., but never at 10 p.m.

The Bar None, perhaps the worst offender for turning loud, out-of-control drunks loose on Union Street after closing time, has a legendary reputation as a favorite hangout for very young imbibers. I once saw two girls stumble up from its depths, fall into the plate glass window of the shop next door and – despite the fact they could have been decapitated had the glass broken – lie on the ground, a tangle of Seven for All Mankind jeans and Jimmy Choo shoes, laughing hysterically, until one of them threw up in the other one’s hair.

During the period Czember and crew battled the Brick Yard, the Gravity Room, located at 3251 Scott Street between Chestnut and Lombard Streets, had a gang shooting that resulted in a homicide the night the San Francisco Giants became World Series champions. After years of trouble (this wasn’t the first time someone was shot at Gravity) the club finally shut down.

Wasting City Resources

It just seems to me there are bigger problem venues in the Marina-Cow Hollow area than the Brick Yard, which has not had a single police incident since it opened. Although there was the time Czember called 911 about a very drunk woman in grave danger sitting in the planter box outside. When the paramedics arrived, the woman told them it was her birthday, she drank on an empty stomach and felt faint – she refused help and the paramedics left (I assume to respond to some real emergencies). Czember proceeded to e-mail the photo she took of the woman sitting in the planter box to multiple city officials, prompting the now extremely embarrassed woman (an executive with a large financial firm) to respond that she wasn’t near death from alcohol poisoning as Czember claimed.

More than 20 businesses on Union Street have come out in support of the Brick Yard patio, as have the Union Street Merchants Association, the Union Street Enrichment Association, and all of the adjacent building owners. On top of that, more than 1,200 residential supporters have signed petitions – and over 100 of them live within two blocks of the Brick Yard.

All of this has cost the owners of the Brick Yard, who just want to operate a successful, competitive business and help keep Union Street strong, thousands of dollars and untold hours of their lives they will never get back.

As a taxpayer, I’m infuriated that a couple of Grass Valley residents and their friends have the power to tie up and waste city resources on a losing battle. If I saw any merit to their argument, perhaps I’d feel differently, but after weighing all the evidence, I must say that I don’t. Common sense also tells me that the Planning Commission, Board of Supervisors and Board of Appeals have more important things to worry about than whether or not the nineteenth restaurant on Union Street gets a patio. But then, as long as city leaders continue allowing the vocal minority to run the show, common sense will never prevail.

Susan Dyer Reynolds is editor in chief of the Marina Times and Northside San Francisco. Email: [email protected].