Martin Macks Loses Parklet Due to Smoking, Feces

The city has ordered its first removal of a parklet, and one reason was that it was being used as an open-air toilet. As the Examiner reports, Martin Macks in the Upper Haight had been fined repeatedly for lack of upkeep on the parklet outside the bar, and as our colleagues at Curbed previously discussed, this particular parklet, with its brick wall and overhead trellis (since removed), has not been well received, design-wise, by the neighborhood. Also, they've been dinged for letting people smoke out there, which is a no-no under city rules.

Martin Macks has 15 days to appeal the ruling by the Department of Public Works, although Public Works has said they may remove the thing themselves "in a matter of days" and bill the bar for the removal, if they don't take care of it themselves.

Commenters from the neighborhood noted on the Examiner story that this parklet has been the site of "pissing and shitting" by street people late at night, and as one person writes, "I typically cross Haight Street as I approach this mess so I can avoid the pitbulls, smokers, vagrants and drunks that use this parklet as a holding pen before their next decision."

And though bar employees still want to work to remedy the situation and keep the parklet, the Public Works order says they can't even get any redesigns approved until pending litigation between the current and previous owners of the bar is resolved. (You may recall that the bar changed hands in early 2012 amid some legal tension, and briefly toyed with changing its name too.)

· S.F. orders parklet removed from Martin Macks [Examiner]
· Parklet Peril [~ESF~]
· Martin Macks in the Upper Haight Wants to Keep Parklet [Curbed SF]