Blue Bottle Coffee's decision to back out of a city-blessed plan to open up shop -- albeit in a small 8-by-12 aluminum trailer -- in Dolores Park was a gimme-a-shot-of-espresso-no-make-that-a-double wake-up call for San Francisco officials eager to add commerce to the park visitors' experience: If there's one thing San Franciscans know how to do it's organize, especially if its over a neighborhood issue.
Opponents of the plan to let Blue Bottle open in Dolores Park mounted an aggressive campaign. ''It saddens me that Blue Bottle pulled out, but San Francisco neighborhood politics is what it is,'' said Recreation and Park Commission President Mark Buell.
He said he hopes the department can find another coffee vendor to go into Dolores Park. But first, he said, staff should embark on much more robust outreach with the surrounding community ''and find a magic formula of what would be acceptable.''
Recreation and Park Department staff learned of Blue Bottle owner James Freeman's decision late Tuesday, just days before his portable coffee stand was to open and amid continued controversy. Freeman told the City Insider that he bid for the Dolores Park concession because he thought ''it would be a fun delightful idea, but eventually it proved to be not so delightful.''
Nearby cafe owners, upset over the prospect of city-sanctioned competition, led the charge against Blue Bottle; other neighbors, upset over the idea of commercializing the park, joined in. Opponents signed petitions, packed public meetings and vented their fury on blogs.
In short, they made life miserable for park officials who had hoped to make it easy for people to buy a cup of coffee in the popular park and at the same time generate some money, in the $30,000 to $35,000-a-year range for the cash-strapped Rec and Park Department.
Rec and Park Department spokesman Elton Pon said opposition was led by just a handful of people and that the real proof of support or disapproval would have been ''whether people bought a cup of coffee there.''
The Blue Bottle controversy is just the latest to hit Rec and Park, with plans to find a new operator of the Stow Lake food and boat concession in Golden Gate Park and another to charge admission to out-of-town visitors to the city's Botanical Garden also drawing heat but eventually moving forward.
''Controversy is the reality of any change that takes place in a park,'' Buell said. But in the end, he added, rec and park officials are looking for new ways to make money to protect services. By the way, La Cocina, a Mission District-based business, is set to open a stand in Dolores Park, perhaps as early as next week.
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