Club Deluxe is set to close Aug. 27 at the Haight-Ashbury location it’s occupied for more than three decades.
Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle 2007UPDATE:33-year-old S.F. jazz bar closed for good after landlord conflict
Theclosing of storied jazz bar Club Deluxeunderscores the devastation wrought by the pandemic on entertainment venues. It also illuminates the messiness of landlord-tenant disputes, many of which were heightened by the pandemic’s economic disruption.
Aug. 27 will be the club’s last day of operation at the Haight-Ashbury location it’s occupied for more than three decades, said Sarah Wilde, who has owned the venue with husband Chris Pankow for seven years. She sentan open letterto musicians inviting them to “grab a set” and play there one more time.
“我很感激有机会往下运行h an amazing institution,” she said in an interview. “I hope that we can move it. I have hopes for it being alive for another 33 years.”
Wilde and Veritas, the giant real estate company that manages the property, both say they were unable to come to an agreement about past and future rent. But beyond that, their accounts differ.
“We need the insatiable greed of wealthy investors, to give a flapjack about the cities they are systemically draining the color out of … but they do not,” Wilde wrote to the musicians.
Veritas released a statement from Chief Operating Officer Jeff Jerden that said it had been “proactively trying to find a resolution with Club Deluxe for a year now, to keep them in the space.” It said it had offered to forgive over $200,000 of past due rent, amounting to two-thirds of arrears, and had offered a lease at lower rent through 2027.
“Despite the owner’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful negotiations, we have NOT initiated eviction,” Jerden wrote. “It is incredibly frustrating that we have done everything possible to prevent them from closing, only to be met with what they’ve inaccurately posted.”
Wilde took issue with that characterization.
“It’s offensive and patronizing that they are calling my participation, and that of my lawyer, ‘meaningless,’” she said. “We put a tremendous amount of effort in trying to reach a fair and feasible lease.”
Veritas provided a letter it wrote to Wilde and Pankow which said that if back rent were not received, “Landlord may, among other things, commence enforcement of all rights and remedies pursuant to the Lease and/or otherwise under applicable law.”
Wilde said she “absolutely” interpreted those words as threatening eviction and a lawsuit over back rent. Veritas’ letter also said it will start charging Wilde and Pankow 5% of the delinquent rent. The two sides also disagree about the exact amount of arrears.
Wilde said Veritas’ offer to forgive much of the back rent was conditional on signing a new five-year lease, which she didn’t feel took into account the changed landscape.
“COVID is not gone,” she said. “Small businesses are still suffering. Fair market value is something I would have like to discuss because I feel it was different.”
Wilde said she was unable to pay the $15,000 monthly rent during the 16 months that health authorities required the club to shut down, from March 2020 until the end of June 2021.
Since July 2021, when the club reopened, Wilde said she paid rent in full and on time even though Deluxe had to close four more times. Three were pandemic-required shutdowns and once was due to water from upstairs units pouring down onto the stage, according to a letter she wrote to Veritas, which the real estate company provided.
She provided a copy of a rent ledger prepared by Veritas that confirmed her payments.
Veritas, San Francisco’s biggest residential landlord managing about 6,500 rentals in the city,has drawn criticism during the pandemicfor its handling of rent relief for people in its apartments. A tenants’ union, the Veritas Tenants Association, staged a five-month rent strike. The group and its supporters said the strike resulted incancellation of rent debt,but Veritas said that it had not negotiated with the group, and it was mischaracterizinga rent relief programit announced separately.
Veritas says it has worked hard to support tenants during the pandemic.
That’s not how Wilde sees it.
“我们需要这些投资者看到我们为value in our community, but they do not, and so we vanish from the cityscapes they come into,” she wrote in her letter to musicians.
Chronicle staff writer Roland Li contributed to this report.
Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:csaid@sfchronicle.comTwitter:@csaid
