Jack London District Restaurant Survey
We've created a survey on restaurants in the Jack London District. Please take five to ten minutes to go through the survey. We'll publish the results in the March print edition of Jack London News.

Click here to take the survey
Posted 1/29/2006

Mingles Related Mugging in the Neighborhood
An Allegro resident on their way home from Mingles late last Thursday (1/26/06) or early Friday (1/27/06) was mugged on 2nd Street. Allegro management said that the victim had been harassed in front of Mingles and then the harassers followed him home. Broke his cheek bone and took his wallet. Please be careful when you're out at night and use the buddy system whenever possible. The OPD has not responded to Jack London News regarding the incident, but we will keep you informed as more (confirmed) details are reported.
Posted 1/29/2006

Zazoo's Cabaret License Hearing Scheduled
The City of Oakland has scheduled the Cabaret License Hearing for Zazoo's for Thursday, February 2, 2006 at 6:30pm. The Hearing will be held at City Hall in Hearing Room 2 (although check Hearing Room 4 upstairs just in case).

If you cannot attend the meeting they recommend sending letters to:

Barbara Killey, Hearing Officer
One Frank Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA 94612

Or via email to Ms. Killey at bkilley@oaklandnet.com.

After my experience with the Mingles hearing, I would suggest sending a letter and attending, but be careful about giving out your name in the hearing. I would suggest that you ask the Hearing Officer to ask all in the room to provide their name if you are to provide yours. There were commenters in the back of the room at the Mingles hearing that never had to give their name because they only heckled from the back - they never spoke from the podium. It makes me nervous to think that they know who I am, but I have no idea who they are. They may work for one of the clubs or be a patron, or perhaps they had some other reason to attend the meeting.
Posted 1/24/2006

Shooting at Mingles January 21, 2006
Several people asked about a shooting at Mingles last week, which we were not aware of. Thanks for asking! We found an article on the Oakland Tribune website. We also have calls in to our neighborhood police liason and as we have more information, we'll pass it on. It appears that this was not a random shooting, but rather specifically targeted. That doesn't help when innocent bystanders get in the way, but I'm sure this will come up in future hearings regarding Mingles. (And no, there are none scheduled at this time.)
Posted 1/24/2006

Jack London News Infrastructure Help Wanted
Jack London News needs help!

If you would like to write an article about the neighborhood, we'd love to put it in print.

Can't write, but want to help? Jack London News is also looking for "Building Captains" and "Block Captains" to help distribute the news. There's quite a few businesses on the "other side of Broadway" that haven't gotten a print copy of the paper and I don't want anyone to feel left out. SO, if you can help, send an email to editor@jacklondonnews.com. Specifically, if anyone works in the building on the corner of Webster & 3rd across from Bay Cities, we'd like to get you the print copies to pass along to tenants there.

The next issue goes to print this Friday for distribution Friday, February 3rd.

Thanks,
Joanna Adler
Editor
Posted 1/23/2006

Future of Development throughout Oakland
Today's San Francisco Chronicle has an article about the Oakland Mayoral race and the various candidates stances on future development. My favorite quote from the article was from Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown:

"In most of the places where there are now new buildings, there was nothing there. It was dirt, and that doesn't provide for more cafes, retail shops and eyes on the street."

Wow! It's just too bad that most of the development here in the Jack London District isn't being built with PROPER retail spaces, much less restaurant spaces. Rather than more sandwich-serving cafe's (which I enjoy and utilize), more restaurants would make the area more attractive and create more activity, which might not actually be wanted at night because of noise issues. Unfortunately, no developer has been willing to take on that task since Fourth Street Lofts. As for retail space, the developers of Allegro (not the current owner) were required to put retail space in and what a disaster that turned out to be. Most of the spaces are just not the right size or layout for a retail store and have been empty for four years now or have been rented as office space. Other mixed-use spaces in Sierra have been hijacked for retail - for the good of the community. It will be interesting to see what happens on the ground floor of the four upcoming buildings, but sorry, no spaces within the four new projects will become a restaurant unless someone is willing to spend huge bucks on rebuilding later. This is due to venting issues, parking, trash, and sink drains.

The Chronicle article is actually about Oakland's mayoral race, which has gotten a bit more interesting with Dellums being added to the mix. In the article they quote Dellums as saying, "10,000 new residents are not enough to revitalize the city" and that, "the city needs homes to bring in 50,000 new residents." De la Fuente would most likely continue to be gung-ho on development, while Nancy Nadel would probably be a bit more conservative, although one wonders what support for that she would have with City Council.

When considering the Jack London District and all the possibilities, what kind of places do you think of? Send your responses to editor@jacklondonnews.com and we'll follow up with local businesses to get their take on why the area doesn't have you're looking for. The most likely reasons are overhead costs, parking, and not yet enough people. At some point a few factors will change enough to appeal to more entrepreneurs.
Posted 1/20/2006

Jack London News Now In Print
Jack London News went to print today for the first time. It will be making its debut in restaurants, cafes, and at other local merchants throughout the day today. In case you're a hermit and prefer to print your own, download your own copy here (PDF).
Posted 1/19/2006

Oakland Tribune Article on Construction Woes
Today, the Oakland Tribune reported on local construction here in the Jack London District.

I sent a letter to the Tribune in response, because Ms. Burt is a bit late and a bit incomplete in her reporting on the subject. Below is the text of my letter to the Tribune.

Regarding Cecily Burt’s article, “Waterfront Development Booms”, there are currently only four active construction sites in the Jack London District, not five. Don Smith (City Planning Dept) had been at some of the monthly construction issue meetings in the neighborhood going back to April 2005, but I felt that the City’s response was inadequate – they had (nor have) levied no fines despite repeated flagrant disregard for the conditions of approval (known as COA’s), so I contacted Nancy Nadel. Often construction would start hours prior to the 7am start time, and continue long after the 7pm stop time. There were also issues with weekend work (specifically not allowed until the building is enclosed), and issues of construction workers parking on-street within in the area, when they were supposed to park in designated lots. Ms. Nadel suggested that I take my concerns to the City Planning Commission, which I did in October 2005. Since then the City has vastly improved their responses to problems.

Congestion is a major concern upon completion of these projects, as is parking, but that’s because when developers go through the approval process, parking and traffic projections (if even required by an EIR) are based on conditions at the time of the study and not based on projected conditions at the time of completion which should include other buildings approved, but not built at the time of the study. The buildings currently under construction will only provide between .99 and 1.4 parking spaces per unit, and that will cause overflow parking to end up on the streets. No mitigations have been made for the four current projects in regards to traffic impacts and I believe none are currently planned for other projects, either approved or seeking approval.

This is a problem with the current EIR for the Oak to 9th Project as well as the number one problem with the Jack London Square Redevelopment Plan. With JLS, the developer will use data from 2000 to calculate future parking and traffic mitigations – and that project in under agreement through 2020.
Posted 1/09/2006