News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by balaji1 on Saturday June 17, 2023 @03:59PM (#36373978)
IKEA was supposed to open in SF. Somehow I thought it was supposed to be coming up in Westfield, but its somewhere else:

https://sf.eater.com/2023/5/19/23729883/ikea-livat-mall-mark...

Anyway, a big blow for SF to lose Westfield.

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by vlovich123 on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:01PM (#36373992)
Is it? I feel like it’s mostly tourist traffic. I don’t know if natives shop there all that much. In terms of revenue and tax basis maybe.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by JoeyBananas on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:36PM (#36374309)
"Nobody wants to visit our town anymore because it is no longer worth visiting, but it's OK because that doesn't effect the locals."
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by 49erfangoniners on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:03PM (#36374013)
Yeah this mall is terribl
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by whalesalad on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:07PM (#36374066)
IKEA tenderloin? That is a horror movie and I need to see it.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by mc32 on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:38PM (#36374325)
They have to put something similar to pigeon spikes on all furniture which would kind of defeat the purpose of having floor samples.

The only way this could work is if they charged people a refundable entrance fee of like $1000 or something. Otherwise I could see it turning into a squatted living space with druggies hanging out getting in the way of potential customers.

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by simoncion on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:47PM (#36374425)
> The only way this could work is if they charged people a refundable entrance fee of like $1000 or something.

I guess you'll be shocked to hear that shops with furnishings inside of them (including, but not limited to the Macy's department store) have been operating for decades without installing anti-homeless spikes on the floor samples, _or_ charging an entrance fee.

Having a human posted at the entrance whose job is to bounce away hobos is (based on my personal, first-hand observations) more than sufficiently effective.

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by mc32 on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:53PM (#36374474)
Nordstrom's is moving out, so is Anthropologie... but that's beside the point. IKEA's layouts are notoriously labyrinthine, the perfect kind where "associates" cannot scan to see what's going on a whole floor with a glance.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by seanmcdirmid on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:54PM (#36374490)
Ya, the IKEA near an art university in Beijing China used to have a problem with art students using it for nude photo shoots.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by Gunnerhead on Sunday June 18, 2023 @12:05PM (#36381471)
That’s hilarious.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by simoncion on Saturday June 17, 2023 @05:00PM (#36374534)
> IKEA's layouts are labyrinthine, the perfect kind where "associates" cannot scan to see what's going on a whole floor with a glance.

You (intentionally?) missed the part where hobos get bounced out at the front door.

You've also pretty clearly not been in either of the Macy's buildings. [0] They, -too- (just like the other large department stores that have been operating in the area for decades) are so large that the employees on the floor cannot see what's going on across the entire floor with a glance.

[0] Well, they _used_ to have two. Since a year or two ago, they closed their menswear building and consolidated in a single building.

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by mc32 on Saturday June 17, 2023 @05:04PM (#36374584)
Great, now you want them to be exposed to accusations and claims of discrimination, nice!

This issue is a new issue --it's not decades long. It's only become an issue since intersection of prop 47 with SF governance. This is why companies are only beginning to pull out now.

Unbelievably, SF already had loitering and vagrancy laws on the books, but the panhandle had to have a new more specific ordinance to address druggies blocking doorway entrances etc (the sit/lie law), of course, in typical fashion, it could only be enforced after a written warning and after a second it became a misdemeanor...

It's just easier and better to find a place that's friendlier to business.

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by simoncion on Saturday June 17, 2023 @05:21PM (#36374755)
Prop 47 is from 2014, ~9 years ago.

Sit/lie in SF is from 2010, ~13 years ago.

SF has been in a commercial decline for a whole bunch of reasons.

Despite that, front-door bouncers have continued to be -as far as I could tell, as a customer of these establishments- more-or-less totally effective at keeping hobos out.

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by idlewords on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:49PM (#36374441)
Another problem solvable by judicious use of trapdoors.
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by delfinom on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:23PM (#36374184)
I wonder if they'll be smart and not put fake toilets in the mockups....
Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by jshprentz on Saturday June 17, 2023 @05:09PM (#36374629)
You can read the novel Horrorstör [1]. As of 2020, the film rights have been optioned by New Republic Pictures.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrorst%C3%B6r

Re:Westfield’s San Francisco Centre Mall Lost 46% of Its Sto... by 8f2ab37a-ed6c on Saturday June 17, 2023 @04:13PM (#36374112)
Giving it 18 months before it gets shut down, but if it doesn't, I'd be curious to see how they pull it off.