City went after venue, promoter for concert

It’s illegal amid pandemic; organizer says show is off

City Attorney Dennis Herrera said Wednesday that his office had demanded the property owner of a San Francisco nightclub cancel a concert planned for Friday night because during the coronavirus pandemic it would be considered an “illegal party.”

The venue, 251 Club on Rhode Island Street, was scheduled to host a DJ set featuring the artist Lehar on Friday night.

The venue’s website makes clear that the club is “closed until further notice” because of the COVID19 pandemic. But the concert’s promoters at Set San Francisco were still selling nonrefundable tickets to the show as of Wednesday morning, in what Herrera described in a statement as ignoring the health order put in place that prohibits public gatherings. However, Christian Pineiro of promoter Set San Francisco said the event is off and that he had tried unsuc

cessfully to pull down the ticketing promotion.

“The individuals behind this party have either completely failed in their responsibility to the public, are engaged in a cynical scheme to rip off people knowing this event will never happen, or are putting lives at risk in a dangerous attempt to profit off a public health emergency,” Herrera said.

Set San Francisco advertised that 200 tickets were for sale at prices ranging from $5 to $780 for packages that included a “VIP booth” and two “premium bottles.”

Other concerts put on by the promotion company have apparently been canceled, according to Set San Francisco’s Facebook page, including another show planned for Friday night at Public Works, a different venue in San Francisco.

“Putting 200 people together in a club is the exact wrong thing to do right now,” Herrera said. “It would create a powder keg for this virus to explode across our communities. We’re not about to let that happen.” Failing to comply with the health order could result in imprisonment of up to a year, a fine of $1,000, or both.

Set San Francisco founder Pineiro said he had attempted to delete the event promotions online, but a technological glitch prevented him from taking the ticketing website down entirely. He said he reached out to ticketing website Eventbrite on Sunday to ask to remove the concert and to refund anyone who purchased tickets.

He was admittedly somewhat late in doing so, he said, because he was laid up for five days — after contracting the coronavirus himself — while traveling in Saint Martin, in the Caribbean.

“This is the worst flu I’ve ever had to deal with. This is no joke, man,” Pineiro said. “I had huge headaches, it was like needles in my brain, and I had cold sweats every single night.”

Now he said he is dealing with a lingering, painful cough. He said he is “totally supportive” of the city’s efforts to prohibit public gatherings.

“Everyone needs to be following the rules and doing their part,” he said. “No one should be out. The city should be more strict, if anything.”

Herrera sent a letter to the club’s property owners on Tuesday demanding that they stop the ticket sales, making clear that the owners were “responsible for violations taking place at your property.”

In the letter to the club’s owners, Herrera indicates that “an individual claiming to be an owner” told police the event had been called off. Yet the apparent ongoing promotion of the event and the ticket sales show a “callous disregard for the health and safety of San Franciscans in the face of this pandemic.”

Representatives from the club did not respond to a request for comment.