Opinion

Magic in the Mission

Chronicle columnist Caille Milner, stands for a portrait inside the Chronicle studio in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday Feb. 6, 2008. Chronicle columnist Caille Milner, stands for a portrait inside the Chronicle studio in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday Feb. 6, 2008. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Magic in the Mission 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

It is too easy to make fun of the people who packed Room 400 in San Francisco's City Hall to stop American Apparel from opening a store on Valencia Street in the Mission District last week.

They are not serious people. They live in a world where facts like 27 vacant storefronts on Valencia Street and 9.3 percent unemployment statewide and nearly 600,000 jobs lost nationally last month do not matter. The few who read books know no authors beyond Naomi Klein. They do not believe that the world has changed since the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. This accounts for both the static nature of their vocabulary - "no formula retail!" is their death chant, though anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last five months could tell you that there isn't a single retail establishment with a formula today - and the juvenile nature of their worldview. They do not want to see businesses be successful. They do not want the Mission District to be welcoming to different types of people.

What they want is magic.

The word "magic" kept recurring during the hours of public comment at the Planning Commission meeting where the American Apparel store's permit was up for a vote. "Valencia Street is a magical place," one speaker said. Another claimed that "Our neighborhood is a dream, a delicate flower." Others spoke of American Apparel as a "parasite" on their "ecosystem." Several local business owners testified that it was their "dream" to operate in such a "magical" place, and noted, with horror, that they might have to make alterations to their business plans if a new store opened in the area.

As it happens, American Apparel is somewhat of a magical company. The company makes its clothing in downtown Los Angeles, employing mostly Latino and Asian immigrants. It offers its workers health care. It pays more than twice the federal minimum wage.

These used to be called progressive values, and I noticed that some of the people who did not want American Apparel bringing these values to the Mission understood that they should make an attempt to hide this fact.

"This is not about American Apparel," Stephen Elliott told me. Stephen Elliott is the founder of the "Stop American Apparel" Web site and the starting point of this "movement." Yet he insisted to me that "if you allow American Apparel to come in, you're going to have a much harder time saying no to the Gap."

I suppose it is easier to fight against the Gap, but the Gap was not up for a vote at the Planning Commission last week. I thought about pointing this out to city Supervisor David Campos, who attended a "movement" fundraiser and yet claims that he did not "take a stand" on the issue. "I was showing that I shared their concerns, which have been expressed, about formula retail," Campos told me. Campos also happens to be an immigrant, from Guatemala, but this irony is lost on him as well.

Though some claim that this was always about "formula retail," as I sat watching the Planning Commission meeting I noticed something else. Most of these people were happy to sacrifice other people's lives, other people's dreams, for their idea of magic.

When a young man stood before the board and said that he only had health care because of his job at American Apparel, a voice in the overflow room called, "Get a job somewhere else!" Another employee told a story about a young Latino man who was able to send money to his family in Central America, and this news was met with sneers. An American Apparel representative told the board that he had gotten messages from people threatening to throw a brick through the store window, and the crowd laughed.

The commission voted against issuing the permit, and American Apparel is lucky. What a burden it would be to have a store in a magical place with such nasty elves.