Eating City Hall: Broken Record’s Triumph, Taco Truck Struggles

The Broken Record will be able to stay open until 2 a.m. like a normal bar, and El Tonayense taco truck may or may not have to move from its long-time spot at 19th and Harrison streets. These were the results of hearings in City Hall this week.

On the agenda at last night’s Planning Commission meeting was the issue of the Broken Record’s operating hours. Planner Adrian Putra explained to us earlier this week that the neighborhood the bar calls home is not zoned for businesses to stay open past 11 p.m. He had recommended denying late hours, based on the letter of the law.

“The problem with the Broken Record is that in terms of it being necessary, one can’t make argument because there’s already a strong availability of eating and drinking past 11 p.m. There’s already a bar nearby and a pizzeria, and a number of bars on Mission Street,” Putra said.

But the planners voted 6-1 to allow the place to stay open, according to the SF Weekly. This may have had something to do with having a San Francisco supervisor speaking on the bar’s behalf:

“I think the real coup de grâce was when John Avalos walked in,” said an exhausted [Broken Record owner Jason] King. The District-11 supervisor spoke in favor of the bar’s permit (he had hosted campaign events there prior to his election).

So the Excelsior gets to keep its favorite bar, and we can all go visit and sit on the patio and eat barbecue. Happy ending.

Things are not so cut and dry in the Tonayense case. You’ll recall that truck proprietor Ben Santana challenged a city order for him to move at least 1500 feet from John O’Connell High School. Santana said he should be grandfathered in because he has been parking there since before it was a school.

On Wednesday, the San Francisco Board of Appeals voted to uphold the city’s order, but stayed its enforcement to give the two sides time to work things out. Basically, all is as it was on Tuesday. Burrito Justice gives these highlights from the hearing:

• Best piece of evidence - a picture of a 3 inch wide burrito in front of the chain-link fence with 1 inch holes.
• Most interesting comparison - for domestic abuse you often see only a 500 ft stay away order, not 1500ft
• Most ironic revelation (at least relative to my previous article) - Gateway High School (a charter school) is looking to hire El Tonayense for lunch twice a week!

The school and Santana will be working with Supervisor (and former SF Schools general counsel) David Campos as a Moderator Stay tuned, folks.

[Photo: Via Gary Soup/flickr]

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Eating City Hall: Broken Record’s Triumph, Taco Truck Struggles