Absolutely ridiculous that employees are dictated to with regard to where they eat lunch.
If businesses didn't do their due diligence INCLUDING whether the incoming tech companies offered free lunch, BEFORE opening their shops - shame on them.
I agree with other poster, SF BoS needs to focus on homelessness and available housing - not where people eat lunch.
If a person passes a field sobriety test, why the need for a weed breathalyzer?
That this country has a president who, instead of providing reasonable leadership during a disaster, conflates water issues and then tweets nonsense about the deadly wildfires, is a pathetic state of affairs. Just one more example of how low we have fallen. A country cannot be great, when the president ignores facts, had no empathy, and consorts with autocrats.
7
I live in San Diego, and was at the beach with my family this past weekend and swam in an ocean that felt like a warm bubble bath. Its the most frightening experience I have ever had at the beach and just a small taste of whats to come.
The hard truth that no-one wants to talk about, but what global insurers and G5 member militaries are gearing up for; is that we are already past the tipping point of no return. Our grandchildren will experience a world that we could never even begin to imagine.
11
Regarding the tech companies in SF supporting local eateries over eating in house; A decent solution is something I witnessed in Venice, L.A. with Snapchat a few year back.
The techies had a Snapchat credit card with about a $15 a day stipend that was paid for by Snapchat. Many local food spots in Venice would accept the card and charge Snapchat . It allowed the techies to eat free and put money back in local businesses.
Maybe that is a reasonable solution for SF.
13
@Sean Yes, wouldn't it be good to acknowledge both sides of an issue when both sides have a point? Yes, maybe tech workers may be relatively affluent. The key words being both "may be" and "relatively". Yes, supporting local businesses is good. So yes to a suggestion that might possibly address both sides.
4
I will assume that by now, every sentient human being (Except for our President) is aware of the changed (Not "changing") climate. Sentient human beings (With one glaring exception) do not require any further proof. What we do need is a concerted effort to make at least a feeble effort for our grandchildren . I suggest the New York Times could start by spending more time, effort, and natural resources on hectoring our lawmakers to get in step on this issue. Spend less time on Trump as he is a lost cause and too ignorant to be of any value. Zero in on the folks blocking progress and perhaps provide your readers with some tools and resource guides to help us get started. It's too late for the whales, but perhaps we can buy some time for the kids.
16
Waters off San Diego are the warmest on record, video from space shows massive amounts of smoke billowing from California's record fires, and we have a climate numb skull in the presidency. Add today's news to record setting hurricanes striking Houston, Puerto Rico, and Florida last year and unprecedented heat waves across Europe this summer.
It's way past time to add the right to a healthy planet to this Fall's election agenda. In the long run, it's probably more important than American's right to healthcare, and both are essential to survival.
9
Warming ocean temps tend to reduce ocean waters mixing, and warmer waters, with an existing CO2 burden, tend to resist additional CO2 uptake. Effect will be the lessening of the oceans as our CO2 dump, I mean sink. https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2013/07/03/how-much-co2-c...
4
“President Trump blamed the blazes on California’s environmental policies and inaccurately claimed that water that could be used to fight the fires was “foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”
This statement shows how really ignorant Trump is about droughts and wildfires. It has nothing to do with the California water conservation measures of the Central Valley Basin. He’s oddly confusing the joint program between the state of California and the federal government that manages water supplies in the Central Valley Basin, including the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers with fire prevention. The Central Valley Project, is one of the Nation`s major water conservation developments. The CVP improves Sacramento River navigation, supplies domestic and industrial water, generates electric power, conserves fish and wildlife, creates opportunities for recreation, and enhances water quality. The CVP serves farms, homes, and industry in California`s Central Valley as well as major urban centers in the San Francisco Bay Area; it is also the primary source of water for much of California`s wetlands.
Consequently, in Devin Nunes congressional district, farmers want more of that water, which would damage salmon populations and have environmental consequences, including salt water intrusion. This tweet by Trump was a plug for Nunes, nothing to do about wildfires.
19
@Garin Thank you very much for your comment (should have been a NYT Pick). Your understanding and knowledge of our water issues is superb- particularly. the CVP and Trump's wink & nod to Nunes' district; this after sending Ivanka to fund-raise in June.
1
@Garin
One has to realize that Trump isn't ignorant, he is merely lying. Every lie he tells is intended to convince gullible citizens and to play to his base. He may not particularly even care about what lies he spouts, only that he can and will continue to do so.
Whether he is spending all of his time watching his selected news source to find things to lie about and help him constructing a new untruth or maybe he has a gang of paid flunkies checking the real news all day, every day for the opportunity to make up and publish more lies, only history will be able to tell America. And rest assured, historians will find unending sources of true information and future literature will never cease being published about what underlaid the administration of this man, party and government members as soon as we're rid of them all(if not sooner).
Hopefully, when that time comes and the truth becomes known, Americans will learn and act more actively and knowledgeably in future choices of a president.
3
How much CO2 is being released BY the fires? We are ignoring a problem that only people can solve. Yet, Republicans bury their heads in the increasingly hot sand.
I have a coffee farm here. And the crop is failing (for all my neighbors, too) because of climate change.
Ignorance and science denial are killing the hopes of all our children across the planet.
Do we really wait until Wall Street is underwater (in real terms, not like in 2008) before we protect our progeny?
There are not seven deadly sins. There is only greed.
And will be the end of us.
17
So how much warmer is the water since 1916? Never mind, but it is nice to know they’ve been keeping track that long.
4
The Scientists all say, we need to be doing something right now....but we have Donald the Denier and his cronies at the helm of our nation. Nothing will be done until we rid ourselves of the Republicans and Donald J. Trump!
VOTE because YOUR country, freedoms, our democracy and our children's futures depend our YOUR VOTE!
15
How are we preparing for the ecological and related economic changes that the new climate will bring us? How does property value change as cliffs fall into oceans, mud slides off of hills, and some of the most serene forests burn with the anger and the will of the old testament God's wrath? While we should continue to reduce our impact on climate change, we also need to prepare for a very different world. Preparing our aquaculture and agricultural industry for the mid 21st century is a must, no matter how far you live from the ocean's shore.
7
Last I heard the newly arrived tech industry was supposed to be one with a social conscience and be acting socially responsibly.
Instead what San Francisco got was yet another gold rush with unintended consequence in housing that is tearing the City social fabric apart. This is what happens when you give tech behemoths all they want without foresight of the consequences. When confronted with their role in city homelessness resulting from evictions and high rents to give them housing, techies scream "market forces" are at work.
They can't even accept some responsibility by spending $20 or so for lunch so the poverty-level service food industry workers and small business owners can share some of the good fortune. Welcome to trickle-down economics techie style! So much winning.
17
@JJ
The homelessness crisis in California pretty much began when Reagan, as governor, closed the mental hospitals (a fact, not a suggestion that all homeless folk belong in them). It is not an artifact of tech companies having opened offices in San Francisco, nor is it the fault of the employees of these companies, many of whom do not earn the spectacular salaries that receive so much publicity.
With or without Salesforce, Twitter, et al, the cost of living in places like San Francisco, San Jose, and even places that most NY Times readers have never heard of, was bound to go up because population growth and limited available space. The creation of hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs added to this effect, of course.
But the free lunch is a carryover from earlier days in the suburbs when going out to lunch instead of eating in the company cafeteria meant taking an hour or more -- sometimes much more -- out of the work day. A cafeteria, free or subsidized or not, with decent food, free espresso machines, etc. meant more productivity for employers and convenience for employees. And, in any case, existing cafeterias in SF will be grandfathered in.
IMO, if a restaurant in San Francisco can't keep its doors open without help, it should change its menu or its price structure or perhaps relocate.
It's hard to see where the housing crisis will end. More jobs --> more demand --> more pressure on infrastructure, and there's very little land left that's not land fill.
5
@GPS
If these city council members want to really help restaurants they should go one step further and make it illegal to have kitchens in homes and apartments.
@GPS
Exactly