This is a real heartbreaker, folks: Chris Daly says his much-publicized purchase of a Market Street bar is not going to happen.
The District 6 supervisor broke the news to us this morning over the phone (roughly 10 hours after he texted us right around last call, on an unrelated matter). Two reasons conspired to fell the soon-to-be-termed-out ethnic Irish politician’s cliched purchase of a bar and grill: one, his would-be landlord balked at the idea of financially assisting in an extensive remodel. Two, the landlord also balked at promising Daly friendly terms on an extended lease, wanting instead to “work it out later.” Not exactly what you want to hear when embarking on a $250,000 (or so) investment.
So rather than spruce up someone else’s property for free only to be evicted later, Daly is abandoning the deal.
“There was just no certainty,” Daly told us. This could change again, if the landlord has an 11th-hour change of heart. “That’d be great if it happens,” Daly said, “but I’m not expecting it.”
There’s certainly some irony in the situation: a former tenant activist-turned-landlord having problems with a landlord; a longtime enemy of the Chamber of Commerce learning how hard it is to do business in San Francisco.
Daly saw it differently. “What’s ironic is that if [the Southern California-based landlord] was a big corporate property management company [that put everything in writing], I wouldn’t be having this problem,” he said. “With small landlords, there are idiosyncrasies… things need to click, and it just didn’t.”
This means that Daly now needs to end the escrow process and also halt the transference of the liquor license, meaning he’s out money no matter what. More pressing is the fact that he’s termed out of his $100,000 supervisor seat in January… and doesn’t have a job.
The bar idea is still his main focus. “I’ll look around and hopefully I can find a better space,” he told us. If not? “I gotta figure something out. Somehow I don’t think blogging will pay the bills.”
Especially not now, when we no longer have somewhere to drink for free. We’re fucked.
