San Francisco, CA

The city says his parking lot is illegal. He says clubgoers love it

Published

1 year ago

January 24, 2025

The city says his parking lot is illegal. He says clubgoers love it

There’s a parking lot behind the club and concert venue The Midway where an independent businessman runs an illicit operation.

Standing at around 6 feet, 3 inches, and weighing somewhere in the region of 250 pounds, the man, whom we’ll call the Watcher, offers to protect the cars of clubgoers — for a price.

The Port of San Francisco, which owns the lot, contends that the operation is illegal, and The Midway issued a disapproving statement. But when San Francisco Police Department officers visited the lot Jan. 17, they merely gave The Watcher a warning and left, he said. The SFPD was unable to confirm this or “locate any information.”

Rough, with fading paint and weeds sprouting through cracks in the asphalt, and the distinct smell of urine in one corner, the lot sits next to an entrance to Pier 80 at Islais Creek. During the day, it’s mostly empty. But on weekend nights, it fills with the cars of revelers heading to The Midway and, sometimes, teens pre-gaming in their vehicles.

The Watcher, who lives in the Antioch area and declined to provide his name for obvious reasons, discovered the lot’s money-making powers last year while working as a driver in the area. When he lost his job, he had an idea: Hang out at the lot entrance and charge people $20 to park. He knew it wasn’t legal, but neither was it legal for club-goers to park or drink there. So one July evening, he gave it a shot. Promising to keep a watchful eye on the cars, he quickly found he could make up to $700 on a busy Friday or Saturday night. But most weekend nights, he nets around $250, he said.

Six months later, he’s commuting to the Central Waterfront every Friday and Saturday to work the lot entrance. He shows up before The Midway’s first event of the evening and stays until about 3 a.m.

According to the Watcher, there has been one car break-in in the lot since he started the operation, and it was targeted — a dispute between men he did not want to get involved in.

“There’s people that want me to watch their car,” he said on a recent Friday.

The unofficial lot attendant, dressed in sneakers and a blue coach’s jacket and smoking a cigarette, said he sees his work as honest. He has even pulled weeds in the lot and, with help from the city, would like to repaint the parking space lines and clean up the urine, he said.

“He watches the cars here. I think people should at least give him something,” said Manny Ranjo, a nurse who was heading to The Midway to see rapper KRS-One perform.

Ranjo said he loves The Midway in part because he doesn’t have to worry about his car getting broken into while he’s at a show. He added that he went to an electronic concert series at Hibernia SF but couldn’t enjoy himself because he was worried about his car the whole time.

But not everybody supports the Watcher. Redditors have described him as “sketchy” and “thugy.” One commenter speculated that the Watcher would threaten anybody who refused to pay; another worried about getting stabbed.

The Midway has denounced the Watcher’s actions. “We hate hearing someone is illegally profiting off of our patrons from parking obtained without the property owner’s consent,” said Ian Molloy, general manager of the club.

The Port of San Francisco, meanwhile, will work with police to “take further steps if the activity continues,” according to a spokesman. The port has contracted a security guard service to monitor the lot in the evening.

James Cosculluela of A1 Protective Services was working the lot when The Standard visited.

“His time is coming to an end,” Cosculluela said of the Watcher, adding that he’d notified police of the illicit activity.

The Watcher seemed unbothered by the possibility that police would come. He said he’s never threatened anybody at the lot, and if people decline to pay, he doesn’t stop them from parking; he just doesn’t watch over their vehicles or wait for them to return before he leaves. SFPD officers have come before, he added, and let him off with a warning.

The Watcher did, however, seem annoyed by Cosculluela’s dedication to bringing him down. The last security guard who monitored the lot, he said, took a cut of his informal earnings — until the guard’s employer found out and fired him. He tried to offer Cosculluela money once, but the guard refused it.

Growing up in the Mission, the Watcher got involved with gangs at a young age. He said his parents gave him an ultimatum: He could live with family in either Central America or Utah. It was an easy choice, he said, and he spent the next 20 years south of the border (he wouldn’t say which country).

When he moved back, he reconnected with an old girlfriend and got married. They live in the East Bay, and he works the parking lot to support them. He’d like to get a permit from the city and open an honest parking attendant business, but he doesn’t know where to start, he said. All he has is the clientele.

Ranjo is now one of Watcher’s regular clients and texts him before heading to events at The Midway to make sure he’ll be working. One of his friends, a fellow music lover who had his car stolen from another venue, also enlists the Watcher’s services, Ranjo said.

The Standard observed the Watcher chatting with other regular customers and explaining the rules of engagement to newcomers.

“It’s $20 if you want me to watch your car,” he told one couple. They agreed.

He feels it’s not fair for people to call him a scammer.

“If I was a scammer, I’d take the money and leave,” he said. “It’s more like a hustle.”

Source link

Related Topics:crime Dogpatch Featured parking The Midway

Click to comment

San Francisco, CA

Latest California-based gig work app lets people book content creators, editors

Published

7 hours ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Latest California-based gig work app lets people book content creators, editors

It’s 10 a.m. sharp, and Abby Kurtz gets her first assignment of the day. She’s received a time, a location in San Francisco and a target.

Her weapon of choice: an iPhone.

“Being a social agent is really the coolest thing ever,” she said.

Kurtz is a content creator working through an app called Social Agent, part of an expanding gig economy where more and more workers are trading stability for flexibility. Work that once required connections, planning, and a big budget can now be booked with a tap —extending the on-demand model from rides and meals to storytelling itself.

Just make a request, and someone like Kurtz can arrive within 30 minutes, camera-ready.

“What I look for when I’m shooting events is very crisp and clean content,” she said.

Her mission this time took her to Sutro Nursery, a nonprofit dedicated to growing native plants and that is hoping to grow its volunteer base, too. Board member Maryann Rainey said booking a Social Agent is a lot cheaper than hiring someone to do their social media full-time.

“I know I can’t do it myself, and I was certainly hoping that these young people would know how to do a good film,” Rainey said.

A typical job runs about $200, with same-day delivery. Agents earn around $50 an hour, plus tips. And if clients already have footage, they can upload it and have it turned into a finished piece.

The service is currently available in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, with a slower rollout now underway in other cities.

Lisa Jammal, the company’s CEO, said the idea is simple: Let someone else do the shooting.

“We all are missing those beautiful moments because we’re always behind the phone,” she said.

As for Kurtz, after the shoot, she headed straight to a nearby coffee shop, where the clock started ticking. She had just over an hour to shape her raw material into a polished final cut.

“I think I’m going to give this reel a really peaceful, calming feel, but also informative and inviting,” she said.

In:

Source link

San Francisco, CA

SF scientists build robotic storm samplers to track pollutants before they reach the Bay

Published

19 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Environmental Scientist Kayli Paterson from the San Francisco Estuary Institute is hitting the road with colleague David Peterson and a trunk full of water sampling robots.

“Yeah, I think the max we’ve ever done was five. But the sites are very close together. Oh, there it is. Hopefully it samples well,” says Paterson as she turns the mobile sampling lab onto a private oak-lined road.

They’re closing in on a watershed creek flowing through the hillsides near the San Andreas Lake reservoir, west of Highway 280 in Millbrae, part of the larger watershed that eventually drains into San Francisco Bay.

“So, we’ve got our sampler. Look at the battery. Hook that up, red and black. This is a 12-volt lithium battery, and it powers our sampler for probably about six to seven days,” she explains, showing off a self-contained unit miniaturized into a portable case.

MORE: Futuristic Fight Club: VR-controlled boxing humanoid robots battle in San Francisco

The black cases are their latest innovation in stormwater science. Robotic samplers anchor in key sections of the watershed to monitor not only flow, but also the chemicals and pollutants washing downstream toward the Bay.

“And this is a front-line pollution sampler. It’s getting the stormwater before it enters the Bay. And so, we want to know what’s coming into the Bay and getting these samplers out there in more locations will give us a better idea of where we might have issues, where a hotspot is, or maybe a previously unknown contaminant,” says Paterson.

“It’s important to get out that fast,” her colleague David Peterson adds. “You know, in these storms as they’re happening, because the water is picking up pollutants in real time, and we need to be there to capture them.”

When we first met Peterson several years ago, he and another Estuary Institute team were sampling water along the Bay shoreline by hand, a technique that’s still valuable. But to cover more ground, Kayli and a group of collaborators began developing the robotic samplers over recent storm seasons.

Kayli and David start by chaining the unit itself to a tree near the creek bank. The system employs remote-controlled pumps that draw samples from the creek and store them in onboard containers. The software controlling the volume and frequency can be operated from a phone app.

MORE: New study of San Francisco Bay fish confirms concentrations of PFAS aka ‘forever chemicals’

One of the key targets in this study is a group of so-called “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, synthetic compounds that persist in the environment and have been detected in widespread areas of the Bay.

“And we capture samples and send them off to analytics labs across the country. Typically, universities or private labs will process these for us,” Peterson explains.

For these two stormwater detectives, it’s a mission that requires a combination of speed and patience**, chasing flowing water** through creeks and storm drains, sampling as they go.

“So, we’re looking for areas – the point of this is to do source control. Ultimately, we want to be able to trace this back to a possible source,” says Kayli Paterson.

And potentially prevent a source of toxic pollution from reaching San Francisco Bay and our Bay Area ecosystem.

More than a dozen of the robots were given names in a special contest, including the Big Sipper and the Tubeinator.

Source link

San Francisco, CA

Floats for San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade get finishing touches

Published

1 day ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Floats for San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade get finishing touches

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — ABC7 Eyewitness News got a sneak peak as crews put the finishing touches on the floats you’ll see at Saturday’s San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade.

Since it’s the year of the fire horse, you’ll see a lot of horses and fire symbolism on the floats, housed at Pier 19.

“So Year of the Horse, it’s energy, it’s passion, it’s momentum so a lot of things that we’re really hoping to embody in the new year,” said Stephanie Mufson, owner of San Francisco-based The Parade Guys, which designs and constructs the floats.

She said they’ve been building them for about three months, with the designs starting in November.

MORE: Bay Area artist brings Year of the Horse statue to life for Golden State Warriors

“We’re in the home stretch,” she said. “We’ve got a couple of days left and we’ve got a nice little team that’s cranking out all the finishing work that needs to go into it.”

Derrick Shavers was sanding some wood that will be painted and become cherry blossom trees on a float.

“It’s exciting,” Shavers said. “I look forward to coming every year and just creating and making things shine and sparkle.”

Bon was painting mountains for a float, making sure everything is perfect in time for the parade.

MORE: Meet the 2026 San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade mascot, Maverick

“It’s one of the few parades that actually happens at night still,” Bon said. “So we got to make sure all the lighting is in check, and people are safe on the float. It’s all in the details, just for it to walk by you for 10 seconds.”

Ten seconds that bring so much joy to those watching the parade.

Here’s how you can watch the parade on ABC7 Eyewitness News on Saturday, March 7.

Coverage starts at 5 p.m. wherever you stream ABC7.

SF Chinese New Year Parade 2026: How to watch ABC7 Eyewitness News live coverage

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Source link