A grocery store owner talks about the struggle to survive in San Francisco

San Francisco's Urban Harvest Market at Eighth and Howard streets in San Francisco on Sept. 18. 2019 San Francisco's Urban Harvest Market at Eighth and Howard streets in San Francisco on Sept. 18. 2019 Photo: Amy Graff Photo: Amy Graff Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close A grocery store owner talks about the struggle to survive in San Francisco 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

It all started with honey. Naturally sweet honey.

A 20-something Gil Desaulniers was living in San Francisco in the 1970s and imported honey from his home country of Canada to sell in health food stores.

"I was a hippie kid," says Gil Desaulniers, now age 67. "I liked eating healthy. I always believed you are what you put in your body."

One thing led to another and with the help of investors, Desaulniers opened his own health food store in 1990 on Market Street in the Castro District. After 28 years in business, Harvest Ranch Market closed in 2018.

"Whole Foods opened two blocks away at Market and Dolores," he says. "Our business was cut in half."

Desaulniers is still in the grocery business and owns the Harvest Urban Market opened in 2003 at Eighth and Howard streets in SoMa.

The brightly lit 12,000-square-foot store is the size of a Trader Joe's, yet carries everything you'd find at a traditional supermarket, from produce to wine, and more. You won't find just one type of Tahini, but four brands including one made in Chico, Calif., and another imported from Turkey.

The tortilla chip shelf alone features more than 30 types, and these are only the chips for dipping in salsa and guacamole. If you want potato chips there are dozens more options.

"I like that salt and lime tortilla chip," says Desaulniers, pointing to a bag labeled La Morenita., made in Napa. "It's like an addiction because it has a fatty oil and it's got salt and oil in it. La Morenita. Napa. They use real ingredients. The oil fat stays in the chip. Your body goes 'oh this is good.'"

Gluten free, healthy, local, imported and big-name brands are all among the categories covered by the food offerings. "We carry Oreo cookies yet we carry Paul Newman too," he says. "When European customers come in, they want the real thing, but locals want the healthier version."

Desaulniers says the business has faced serious challenges in recent years and now he's in the situation again of thinking about closing a store. The high cost of owning a small business in SF and the city's complicated tax and permitting processes are running him into the ground. He says he barely breaks even and in some recent years hasn't taken a salary.

"You're up against massive corporations like Amazon with purchasing power and the legal teams to deal with the city," he says. "They can average out our costs in other cities and cut their losses in San Francisco. For the small businesses, the bar is very high."

Another issue impacting the store is the neighborhood's population of drug users. People strung out on drugs have vomited in the store, thrown screaming tantrums and shot up in the bathroom. Shoplifting is a daily occurrence and employees working the early-morning shift have been assaulted. The store's back door is metal, yet corroding from the amount of human pee on it. On average, he says he deals with about 10 people a day who are on drugs in his store.

"I had a guy who chewed up his arm raw in the store, and I had to call 911," he says. "It took six people to subdue him and they had to zip tie him to the stretcher. This is happening in your business. It distracts you from what you're doing."

Desaulniers isn't the only small business owner struggling in the neighborhood, that's home to museums, several tech-company headquarters and services for people living on the street and addicted to drugs.

Mr. Smith's, a nightclub and cocktail lounge a few blocks away, quietly closed its doors after 15 years. Last month, owner Max Young, owner of Mr. Smith's, wrote an email to Mayor London Breed and District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney to express his frustration over widespread drug use and dealings just outside his business.

Haney is aware of the frustrations of Desaulniers and other small business owners in San Francisco and says, "There's a drug and mental health crisis on our streets, especially in SOMA."

The supervisor says that despite the state of emergency, the city is operating like it's business as usual and the response from Mayor London Breed and the city departments is status quo.

"My constituents, including small businesses, and I are being left to deal with drug dealing and mental illness on our own without the extensive resources that the Mayor and city departments have at their disposal and are refusing to use," says Supervisor Haney. "They need to do their job and fix this nightmare on our streets. It's completely unacceptable."

When I sit down with Desaulniers, he's tired and stressed and the deep creases between his brow are furrowed.

In our brief meeting, I get an up-close look at how much he's juggling by the number of people who approach him as we're talking at one of the tables in the grocery store's cafe.

For starters, there's the worker who has arrived to fix the $4,000 broken window due to a robbery early that morning. There's also an investigator from the District Attorney's office who drops by to share that a customer who bit Desaulniers in the arm is being subpoenaed (This is the second customer who bit him). And there's the employee who asks him to deal with an uncontrollable customer who is shoplifting and hollering that he needs to use the bathroom.

Not all the people who stop by have bad news. There's also a friendly customer who is looking for tiny artichokes for an Italian casserole dish and a wine seller who Desaulniers talks with in perfect French. It's clear these are the people Desaulniers wants to be focusing on.

"The drug part of owning a business in this neighborhood is extremely bad because a lot of these people are mentally unstable," he says. "They're aggressive, they're not cognizant, they don't understand what's going on. And we have to deal with them everyday.

"It's stressful for the employees. I'm not a medical professional, but it becomes my problem. You can't blame these people on drugs because addiction is addiction. We all pay taxes and the government who represents us has a responsibility to deal with the problem. It's a concerted effort between the city and the community."

Desaulniers lives around the corner from his store in a warehouse where he has lived since 1983.

"There was never anywhere to buy food in the neighborhood when I first lived here," he says. "There were small convenience stores but they closed early. The neighborhood was changing and things were growing and I thought it might be a good time to open a business. It felt right at the time."

The first five years were strong, but the neighborhood started changing and the city introduced new rules and taxes and he says it all happened at once. The tech companies and new housing developments in the neighborhood offered hope, but Desaulniers believes the young people have groceries delivered.

"You have more extremes in the neighborhood than you used to," he says. "You have a lot of people on limited budgets and without jobs and then you have the younger tech crowd who pay exorbitant rents and buy groceries online. I see the boxes. They read Good Eggs."

Desaulniers is at a point where shutting his doors may be the only option.

"I don't want to give up on my employees. I don't want to give up on my community."

Amy Graff is a Digital Editor for SFGATE. Email: agraff@sfgate.com

This story was updated on Sept. 20, 2019 at 2:12 p.m.