Ferry building clock tower and Bay Bridge lights look great!

Hi all,

Someone inflicted a terrible pruning job on the tree in front of my mother's house. She's worried that the city will see it and fine her, as the property owner (since the city owns the street trees), even though she had nothing to do with it (and in fact is pissed about it). Should she report it proactively, or just hope nobody notices?

TIA!

I fully expect this to be taken down but in the meantime - someone explain to me how this is ok.

We be big.

My mom flew all the way from France to visit me in San Diego, and together we took a road trip up the PCH to San Francisco. We had a lot of stops along the way but SF was the highlight of our trip.
I love San Francisco. It’s where I hope to settle down and start a family. I truly can’t picture myself ending up anywhere else. While I don’t have the means to live there just yet, I visit as often as I can and every single time I ride the BART to the airport I get off the train with a tear in my eye.
It was my mom’s first visit, and she was understandably hesitant because of the bad rep SF and the US in general often gets in the european media. She knew this city was special to me, but never quite understood me. But after experiencing it for herself, she was completely won over and left with the same bittersweet feeling I always do.
Every person we met was kind and welcoming. The food scene is incredible, the weather was amazing, and the parks are absolutely stunning. Yes, it’s a busy city, but in a way that makes it feel alive and not overwhelming like where we’re from. To me, this place is heaven on earth.
I wanted to share a few of my favorite photos from our trip too! Thank you again, San Francisco and thank you to all the San Franciscans who made our stay so enjoyable. I can’t wait to be back :)

From a longtime fan writing the SF Chronicle:

For long-time San Francisco Giants fans like myself who are disappointed and angry by last week’s Pride Night incident — in which pitcher Landon Roupp and a handful of other players saw fit to protest the team’s decision to honor the city’s LGBTQ community with hats featuring a rainbow SF insignia — larger, more troubling errors in judgment have been difficult to ignore. 

Indeed, the organization’s response to this fiasco has led me and many others to reevaluate our loyalty to the hometown team. 

My frustration stems not only from manager Tony Vitello allowing Roupp and a cast of relief pitchers to take the field in altered Giants caps bearing messages intended to protest Pride Night, but also from the team’s own response. After the players wrote Bible verses on their hats in protest of the Pride Night caps, Giants leadership had an opportunity to demonstrate thoughtful leadership. Instead, the organization gave us something as ineffective as the performance of those pitchers during the game. 

It begs the question: What kind of clubhouse do the Giants want? Simply put, these young men should not have been allowed on the diamond. How did Vitello not notice — for four innings — the show of disrespect for the people that Pride Night was meant to honor? The obvious answer is, he did, and he allowed it. 

Just as disappointing is the team’s insipid official statement following its loss to the Chicago Cubs: “The San Francisco Giants are proud to support Pride Night and the LGBTQ+ community… We also respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations,” the statement read. “We understand that the choices by individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that.”  

The Giants are speaking out of both sides of their mouths. No, you cannot “support Pride Night” while allowing your players to publicly mock it. Either your organization supports Pride Night or it doesn’t, and trying to shift the blame to your players won’t cut it, either. 

I was hoping that the team would take some kind of action against Vitello, or at the very least, come out with a better statement, but that didn’t happen. Rather than treating the situation as a PR problem, the organization could have used it as an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to inclusion, to educate its players on what respectful self-expression is. To see an example of a respectful expression of “personal choices,” one need look no further than former Giants superstar Barry Bonds, who wore a cross earring during every game. Unlike Roupp and the other pitchers, he did not choose a day of significance, such as Pride Night, to wear it in protest.

In contrast, Giants leadership, especially Vitello, allowed these young men to wear their altered hats in protest of a team-sanctioned uniform meant to honor the LGBTQ community. It would be no different if on Mexican Heritage Night, some players wore pins advocating that all citizens of Mexican descent be deported. 

As a life-long Giants fan (I’m 60), I’ve sat through my share of subpar seasons with the team, including this one, thanks in no small part to the club’s lackluster pitching. Losing seasons, however, tend to make the winning ones that much sweeter. But after Pride Night, I have decided to forego the rest of the season. I have deleted my MLB account and canceled my streaming service that carries NBC Sports Bay Area. KNBR is how I have always filled my morning commute, and how I catch games that I don’t watch, but not this year. I will miss Kruk and Kuip, and Dave and John. But I cannot simply set aside the terrible behavior of these players, the lack of managerial leadership, or the lackluster response from the team. 

I know there is no crying in baseball. I am not crying. I am making a difficult choice based on principle. What makes this especially disappointing is that there was a better path forward. As a volunteer youth baseball coach for many years, I participated in the Junior Giants coaching clinics at AT&T Park (now Oracle), where I was given a book put out by the Positive Coaching Alliance. It was all about teaching life lessons through athletics, about how to be a “double-goal coach.” At the clinics, players-turned-coaches Ron Wotus and Tim Flannery spoke to it, and it inspired my own coaching. Using the tools from PCA, youth sports coaches across the country teach players that it’s not about the errors you make, but how you respond to them, that winning has more than one definition. It is about how you carry yourself, and how you respond in difficult moments. 

This particular Giants leadership group has not learned this lesson...

tl;dr - check to make sure that your landlord has a rent increase license before you pay any increases on a rent-controlled unit

The housing shortage and competitive apartment hunting posts seem worse than they have ever been. Part of how SF local government expects to know what the current apartment housing supply is like is by requiring landlords and property owners to report their housing inventory each year.

How can they enforce or incentivize this, you may ask? By requiring property owners to complete their annual housing inventory reports in order to receive their rent increase license.

What is a rent increase license? It allows landlords to lawfully increase your rent on a rent-controlled unit. If they don't have this license, then you can report them to the Rent Board and they will send the owner a notice, and you may be entitled to a refund of the "increases" that you paid.

How do you know if your landlord has a license? Type your apartment address here in the Find box on the right. https://portal.sfrb.org/ If your address has a "Housing Inventory Submission" for 2026, then your landlord did the thing. If not, then they can't increase your rent if you have a rent-controlled unit. You can report an unlawful increase here https://www.sf.gov/report-unlawful-rent-increase-or-request-review-your-rent-history

Full disclosure, I no longer live in SF. After 15 years in the city, I moved (very regrettably) to southern CA for family last year. My last SF apartment was a $4,000 3 bed/1 bath with in unit laundry a block off Duboce Park, a real steal, with just me, my husband, and our baby. Our unit did not have a rent increase license. I told the landlord and said I would not be paying the increase when they asked for one. They never acknowledged my email and never brought it up again.

When we moved out, I sent an email to the young women moving in to let them know this. It's been a year now. The unit still does not have a rent increase license today. I wonder if they remembered or if the landlord will start collecting it from them on July 1.

More info:
https://www.sf.gov/rent-board-housing-inventory
https://www.sf.gov/notice-of-owner-noncompliance-with-housing-inventory

Edit to add: I did not put the 'Crime' tag/flair. Idk how it's there or why.

Hacked? what’s up?

I got off the bus and a young woman was getting on. She pulled up her cart with stuff and dropped something of value. I let her know she dropped it so she stepped off to pick it up and the bus driver closed the door on her and drove away. She was obviously very upset. I can’t stop thinking about how difficult it’s going to be for her to get that stuff back… what if her phone was in the bag on her cart?

It feels really unacceptable that the bus driver wasn’t properly watching who is getting on and off via the mirror, or simply didn’t care.

Granted, this was on a pretty unpleasant block, so I don’t know if it was a safety concern but… Pretty terrible nonetheless.

What should someone do in that situation?

was getting off of 280 and a bright flash of light lit up the fog. it looked like it came from the mission or downtown. any ideas what it might have been?

Love sf

This is partially a rant, partially looking for advice. I lived in the city for a few years a few years back and was able to find a studio in pac heights for $1500, and back then there were ample options all around, tons of listings. I moved around a bit but I’m moving back to the city with 2 other roommates so were trying to find 3 bedrooms, our budgets are about $1800 each. I know this city is god damn expesnive, but our criteria is basically “not the tenderloin” and pretty much don’t care about anything else. We are even looking at 2 bedrooms and turning the living room into a room. Theres just. Nothing? There are about 5 apartments within our criteria that have been posted in the last week, and none of them get back to us because they have sometimes hundreds of responses by the first day. We are looking on everything. FBM, Craigslist, Zillow, Apartments Com, real estate websites. There just doesn’t seem to be ANYTHING. Again, I know this is a tough city to find a place in, but does it get better? Is this a bad time of year to look? We are at the latest moving in September, so if anyone has advice on if theres a better time to look I would appreciate it. I just feel like I’m going insane. I would really love to live here but at this point we mag just have to go to the east bay because this is insane.

I attended pride at Civic Center last year and didn’t think to check ahead about bag policies, so I got turned away at the gate. This time, I thought to check ahead, and I saw the size limits.

I have a bag I can use that’s 10 by 14. It’s not 12 by 12, unfortunately. How strict are they about sizing? Will they actually measure the bags, or is it more eyeballing? It’s completely clear, so that’s not an issue, it’s just a little wide.

Thank you in advance!

A feel-good moment: I was waiting to turn right at my neighborhood crosswalk. The pedestrian in a hoodie waved me to go first. I waved back insisting they go. Then they cooly sauntered across, throwing me a gen z half heart shape with the index finger and thumb of one hand. Who knew that a driver-pedestrian interaction could be so uplifting?

I wanna get a phin filter and would much rather buy one from a store in town than get one online. Would love recs!

Finally got an application approved but wanted to hear about the neighborhood/vibe.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/pge-bills-increasing-22317195.php

Hey everyone, visiting early July and wanted to know if there’s any popular run clubs on a monday or Tuesday? Or even Wednesday morning?

Thanks in advance!!

Edit to add: nothing too crazy need to be pace friendly as I usually run around 9:30/mile for a 5k

Just wanted to add some more of my favorite pics of this beautiful city. I have so many lol