It’s ‘bottoms up’ at more SF movie theaters, as the Board of Supervisors just social-lubricated the red tape around alcohol sales at movie houses.
San Francisco’s answer to creating economic recovery these last few years seems to be to jst add more alcohol sales to every event and get-together. And you know what? It keeps on working!
So District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill followed suit this past November, and proposed relaxing the rules so that more SF movie theaters could sell beer and wine at their concession stands. And on Tuesday, the SF Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the new rules giving more theaters permission to sell beer and wine.
“Movie theaters have been threatened by shifting streaming habits, the pandemic, and more,” Sherrill when introducing his legislation. “The theaters who’ve been hit hardest by these tough economic conditions are the small, single-screen historic theaters.”
“Serving beer and wine at theaters is good for the bottom line, it’s good for their long-term health and sustainability as businesses,” he added.
The way things stand now, the SF Planning Code holds theaters to a “revenue test” that demands a venue make a minimum of its gross sales on food. That holds movie theaters to the same standard as restaurants, and unrealistic threshold for theaters that hop to sell beer and wine.
“Regardless how much we charge for extra butter, no amount of popcorn is going to make 51% of their revenue,” Sherrill said.
Sherrill’s new legislation related rules on all movie theaters in San Francisco. But the legislation is clearly tailored to the soon-to-reopen Clay Theater in his district. The legislation even contains a line delineating that “certain Movie Theaters in the Upper Fillmore Neighborhood Commercial District [can] sell wine and/or beer without being subject to non-residential use size limits otherwise applicable in the District,” which seems to clearly single out the Clay.
The Clay, of course, shuttered just before the pandemic, and is currently in the reopening process as part of billionaire Neil Mehta’s Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project. And yes, maybe some favoritism was applied that Sherrill chose to single out the Clay for certain benefits in ths legislation.
But this is the kind of favoritism that most of us can get behind. After all, San Francisco film lovers would be over the moon to see the venerable and historic Clay Theater open again, ad we’re all for anything that can hel facilitate that happening.
Related: Sup. Sherrill Wants to Make It Easier for Movie Theaters to Serve Booze [SFist]
Image: Lulu L via Yelp