Making their stand
A dispute between Lurie Co. and its neighborhood flower vendor grows into a burdensome bureaucratic push.

By Matthew Hirsch

TWO YEARS AGO Gil Herrera accepted an offer from Lurie Co. (a business started by former San Francisco Giants owner Bob Lurie) to buy out and shut down his struggling flower stand, which was located outside the company office at 901 Market St.

That simple and straighforward permit transfer should have been rubber-stamped by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but instead it has morphed into a proposed ordinance that could spell disaster for all of the city's historic downtown flower stands.

The current proposal making its way to the board would limit flower stand permits to 10-year terms, effectively reclaiming deeds that have run in some families for generations. It would also prohibit the transfer of permits through sale or inheritance, the way nearly all of the current owners acquired them. And among other revisions, it would require the flower stands, which have been loosely regulated for decades, to register as businesses and would double the permit fees they pay to the city.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval crafted these broad regulations in April out of fear that the city was losing control over its public flower-stand permits. He urged tighter regulations on the stands, which he suspects are more profitable than the owners let on, to insure they are not subleased or staffed with minimum-wage employees. The proposal also calls for six new stands to extend business opportunities to "people who are physically-challenged or low-income."

Current owners say that would only water down an already weak market and place unreasonable burdens on flower vendors who often are working long hours just to get by. They say Sandoval simply doesn't understand the nature of the industry he's trying to regulate, but Sandoval insists he knows what he's doing.

"The legislation is more than fair," Sandoval said. "What we are trying to do is engage in an act of good government and examine something that has not been looked at in 60 years."

Lurie versus flowers

Herrera purchased the flower stand five years ago from Barbara Abraham, whose husband, Ziggy, had worked the corner of Fifth and Market Streets since 1960. When Ziggy died 13 years ago, Barbara struggled to find a buyer to take over the stand, and what was once a colorful addition to the sidewalk increasingly became a nuisance for Lurie Co.

Shortly after taking over the stand, Herrera had personal problems that diverted his focus from the business, including family illnesses and a car accident. With his periodic absences, Lurie Co. employees watched as the flower stand became covered with graffiti and the homeless began using it for shelter.

In October 2001, the company offered to buy the stand from Herrera in exchange for $65,000 with the intent to remove it from the sidewalk altogether. Herrera accepted the deal, pending approval from the Board of Supervisors. Until then, Herrera intended to continue his business at the stand.

According to Herrera, Lurie Co. unexpectedly cut off his access to water and electricity, which ran through its building. Later, the company actually sent along a crew to haul off the stand.

"They wanted me out of there, because Lurie Co. and myself were not good friends," Herrera said. By the time he testified before the Small Business Commission, a slighted Herrera had decided to abandon the agreement, although several details are still up in the air – including a conditional $60,000 advance to Herrera and his brother, Ray.

Eugene Valla, Lurie Co. executive vice president, would not discuss the negotiations with Gil and Ray Herrera, who cosigned for the city permit. He said the company had long been interested in removing the flower stand because it considered the stand incompatible with the redeveloped businesses at the site, and not simply because of Gil Herrera.

"I think it goes back years and years, to when we pioneered the renovation of our building there and brought in Marshall's and Copeland's," Valla said.

When the agreement arrived at the Board of Supervisors' Public Works and Public Protection Committee for approval, the committee could have approved it like most previous flower stand-permit exchanges. Instead, Sandoval, the committee's chair, saw an opportunity to find out just how much money the flower stand owners are pulling in. He delayed approval of the agreement to allow for a citywide review of the flower stands by the Office of the Legislative Analyst.

Bureaucracy blooms

The legislative analyst's report made three recommendations pertaining to the city's flower stands, none of them specifically addressing the one at Fifth and Market. Sandoval based many of his recommendations on the analyst's findings and threw in the elimination of the Fifth and Market stand.

"We have the rights with these permits to the area that we're in," Herrera said. Those rights, with 60 years of precedent-setting exchanges from one owner to the next, are challenged by Sandoval's legislation, he said.

Although the permits are revocable, there have been few occasions when the city has reclaimed them. Once, in 1952, the city revoked Agostino Cerutti's flower stand permit, but only after he left San Francisco to retire at a veterans' home in Yountville.

Herrera was tipped off about the legislation in February, but most other flower stand owners, who rarely interact with city officials, found out only at the last minute. Nevertheless, a contingent showed up at City Hall May 12 to register its opposition with the Small Business Commission. There they found a sympathetic board of commissioners, who voted unanimously to reject the proposed ordinance and sent it back to Sandoval's office for revision in consultation with the Department of Public Works.

"It's sort of an institutional mind-set at City Hall that the guys at the flower stands are making money hand over foot," said Harold Hoogasian, who owns the flower stand on the north side of 250 Post St. "If we had two days since the first of the month that we made $100, I'd be surprised," he told us.

Hoogasian said the flower stands should not be regulated as businesses because city restrictions put them at a competitive disadvantage with private operations. City flower stands are restricted to 30 square feet of space, and owners may only sell or display cut flowers, evergreens, and corsages. They may not display, sell, order, or deliver floral arrangements, potted plants, or shrubs. In addition, Hoogasian contends that the stands provide an essential public relations service to the city by acting as information booths for pedestrians and beautifying an otherwise asphalt-laden streetscape.

He questioned why Sandoval would intervene when none of the flower stands are located in his district. He also criticized Sandoval for drafting the proposal without consulting the DPW, the Small Business Commission, or any of the current permit holders.

"If you want to build a piece of specialty legislation to take somebody's flower stand away, then do it and leave the rest of us alone," Hoogasian said. "If Sandoval wants to put 100 flower stands in District 11, he is welcome to do it. But ... leave us alone!"

Roots in misinformation

Sandoval told us he was not aware of the furor his proposal has caused, but he is open to amending it. He said any suggestion that he introduced the ordinance as a favor to Lurie Co. is an attempt to discredit the rest of his recommendations. Despite his assertions, however, Sandoval admitted he has not spoken with any of the flower stand owners directly.

According to Nick Elsner, senior plan checker for the DPW's Bureau of Street Use and Mapping, Sandoval did not consult with DPW staffers either. The report from the legislative analyst recommended an increase in permit fees because it found that the DPW's oversight of the flower stands results in a loss of revenue for the department, but Elsner said that's not the case.

He told the commission it costs $750 to oversee the flower stands, while the DPW is collecting about $4,000 in annual fees. The surplus, he said, pays for other DPW inspections. At $100 quarterly and $30 an employee, the fees have not been increased since 1981, but Elsner said they are only intended to cover the costs of supervising the flower stands.

Other recommendations in the legislation did not make sense either, Elsner said. He noted that the already understaffed Bureau of Street Use and Mapping could not handle the system that Sandoval's proposal would require. Most of the bureau's operations are complaint-driven, he said, so it responds first to serious public safety threats, such as unauthorized excavation in city streets. They do not extend the same urgency to the rare flower stand complaint, he said.

The ordinance would also require the DPW to designate six new flower stand locations even though three current locations have no stands and the one created for Harvey Milk Plaza was never actually built.

If the ordinance passes, it would mark the end of a once glorious history for the flower market at Fifth and Market, while at the same time threatening the city's remaining flower stands. From his Stockton Street flower stand beside Macy's, Albert Nalbandian said it will never come to pass.

Sandoval, said Nalbandian – an 82-year resident of San Francisco – is "a newcomer to the city." He said that about 100 years ago the first street-side flower stands were set up with makeshift boxes and pails at the corner of Market and Kearney Streets. There, flower vendors would catch the crowds on their way to the city's infamous red-light district, the Barbary Coast.

Nalbandian considers his location, where he has been stationed for 58 years, "one of the most wonderful corners of the world."

In between customers Nalbandian shrugged off the uproar about Herrera, Lurie Co., and city regulations. "I think we have to treat this whole affair rather lightly," he said, "because sensible people will never tolerate a city without their flower stands."

E-mail Matthew Hirsch