Monday News Roundup: IKEA Breaks Ground + Landmark Police Brutality Trial Begins

General concept rendering for the San Francisco IKEA, courtesy Ingka Centre

Hey San Francisco and Happy Valentine’s Day!

I don’t know about you, but I saw more stories about pancakes than I did about the Super Bowl over the weekend. That’s because local chef Curtis Kimball hosted his second free pancake fest outside of his home in Bernal Heights on Saturday, and 300 people showed up to eat over 700 homemade pancakes.

Something Kimball’s neighbor told KQED news about the impromptu pancakery really stuck with me: “That’s why you live in a city, to do stuff like this…when things are dead it doesn’t really feel like you’re getting the value out of being in a city.”

As for Kimball, he said on Sunday, “I have no idea what comes next for this silly little project of mine.”

Follow him on Twitter or keep an eye out for paper flyers in the Bernal Heights area to find out.

And now, onto the rest of last week’s news…

IKEA Setting Up Shop

IKEA has started construction inside the empty mall space on Market Street that it purchased back in 2020, the Chronicle reports.

The Swedish firm said it envisions the property, located between Fifth and Sixth Streets, to be an “IKEA-anchored meeting place,” complete with food options, entertainment, other retailers, and even, office space.

The 70,000 square foot, Market Street IKEA will be about a quarter of the size of its typical stores, which reporter JK Dineen writes, “is part of [the company’s] strategy to create compact centers in dense downtowns.” IKEA has 45 similar concepts in Europe, Russia, and China, Dineen said.

As for a ribbon-cutting date, that’s still TBD. Originally, the downtown IKEA was supposed to open last year.

Police Brutality Case Started

Last Monday, attorneys delivered opening remarks in what’s believed to be the city’s first case against an on-duty SFPD officer for using excessive force.

The case involves Officer Terrance Stangel, who was responding to a domestic violence call and repeatedly struck a man, Dacari Spiers, with his baton.

As the Chronicle’s Megan Cassidy writes, “Jurors will be left to weigh whether Spiers was assaulting or comforting his girlfriend before police arrived, whether he was confused or combative when officers approached him and, ultimately, whether Stangel’s use of force was reasonable.”

Besides being the first use-of-force trial of its kind in San Francisco, the case received even more attention last week after an investigator for the District Attorney’s office said she was told to withhold information from her police counterparts. That claim, as we wrote about recently, prompted Police Chief Bill Scott to pull out of an agreement with District Attorney Chesa Boudin, which gave the DA’s office the lead on police-involved incidents.

It’s a lot to take in, but an important case to follow. For more, check out this update on the trial from Mission Local’s Annika Hom.

“Money-motivated” crimes

The Chronicle’s data team says that “money-motivated” crimes (like vehicle theft and robberies) across the 10 wealthiest neighborhoods in the city have increased 7.8% from 2019 to 2021. Meanwhile, in the poorest neighborhoods, the Chronicle says those crimes decreased 15.4% during that time.

As the Chronicle’s Susie Neilson writes: “Crime media researcher Pamela Mejia thinks this difference may explain why, in a recent poll conducted by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, 8 in 10 survey respondents believed that crime had worsened in recent years.”

“For better or for worse, for worse mostly, there’s a sense that in neighborhoods where crime happens all the time, it’s treated as business as usual,” Mejia said. “But when crime starts happening in places where that’s not the case…The response is different.”

Here’s What Else Happened Last Week…

• 😷 Masks will no longer be required inside San Francisco bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and more starting this Wednesday, February 16. (SFist)
• 🏘 After a report last week revealed that roughly 10% of the city’s housing stock is sitting vacant, Supervisor Dean Preston announced a proposal for an “Empty Home Tax” on Tuesday that he hopes to get on this November’s ballot. It’ll take 9,000 valid signatures from registered voters to do so. On Sunday, Senator Scott Wiener questioned the report, saying on Twitter that vacancy rate information is often “misleading” and that “SF doesn’t have 40K vacant homes.” (SFist)
• 👀 Since Mayor London Breed’s emergency declaration at the end of December, the city has hired 100 new public health workers and plans to bring on 100 more by the end of the 90-day order. Previously, the Chronicle reports, hiring for such positions took up to six months. (Chronicle)
• 🎤 Jeopardy! champ (and Oakland resident) Amy Schneider announced Tuesday that she has quit her job as an engineering manager to write a book and become a “public figure, I guess?,” she said on Twitter. (SFist)
• 🍦 Pushback from nearby brick-and-mortar businesses prompted Rec and Parks to end its weekend food truck pilot program on the Great Highway. “Every sale matters right now,” Kathryn Grantham, the owner of Black Bird Bookstore on Judah Street, said. “And putting food trucks up on the Great Highway park is not supporting small business.” (Chronicle)
• 💰 Recology spent almost $500,000 on lobbying efforts in San Francisco in 2021, which was “far more” than the waste management company spent in the previous five years combined, the SF Standard’s Michael Barba writes. The increase came after Recology admitted last year that it had been overcharging customers. (SF Standard)

That’s all for this week’s update. I’ll see you back here next week for more news. And remember, if you want quick, local news bits like this delivered right to you each weekday, click here to sign up for The SF Minute. It’s free!

Oh, one more thing: Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

– Natalie