Haight-Ashbury store Distractions closing
Distractions, a 41-year-old clothing store that is one of Haight-Ashbury’s oldest retailers, will close this Sunday after a years-long decline in business.
Owner Jim Siegel said sales are down around 50% compared to pre-pandemic levels, and he wants to retire. He spent months unsuccessfully looking for a buyer of the business at 1552 Haight St.
Remaining merchandise will be discounted until the final day on Sunday, and the store’s fixtures are also for sale. Siegel said there would be a “special event” at the store on Tuesday, Oct. 24.
A former 15-year employee, Laura Rifkin, confirmed that she wants to reopen the store, but it would require additional financial support. Rifkin is looking into city grants and a potential fundraising campaign. She wants to stay on Haight Street.
“If Distractions moved, I would love to have the community’s support,” Rifkin said.
Distractions’ landlord, Karen Woo, said she has worked with Siegel for decades and tried to keep rent low. “We have been very, very grateful to him,” she said.
After Siegel said he was interested in retiring, Woo hired a real estate broker, Cameron Tu of Touchstone Commercial Partners, to help rent out the space.
Tu said the space’s gross asking rent is $7,500 per month, but that figure could change if, for instance, a restaurant or cafe wanted the space and made extensive renovations.
He confirmed that a gift store was a prospective tenant, but no lease has been signed.
Haight-Ashbury retailers have challenges including the drop in foot traffic and safety concerns, though Tu said the area is attracting more tenant interest than some parts of the city like Chinatown. But hot spots like Valencia, Chestnut and Union streets are outperforming it.
As of March, data from the Haight Ashbury Merchants Association showed that 19 empty storefronts have been leased in the last two years, and its retail vacancy rate is lower than pre-pandemic.
But Distractions was struggling.
Its steampunk, Victorian and science-fiction inspired outfits and gear made it a destination for Burning Man attendees, and the store has long relied on robust August sales. But this year’s August sales totaled around $92,000, far below the $200,000 in sales before the pandemic, Siegel said.
Siegel also doesn’t have an online sales system, and he admits that he hasn’t kept as current on product trends as he neared retirement.
Siegel, 67, had a goal to keep the store going until he turned 70, but COVID made it unsustainable.
The city’s reputation also took a beating, with almost half of respondents in a recent Gallup poll rating the city as unsafe.
Siegel said people’s perceptions of the city have been distorted — including his own father’s, who watches Fox News and its frequently negative coverage.
“We really need to change the narrative that San Francisco is this crime-ridden place, full of homeless,” he said. “At least we don’t have violent crime here like other cities. We have property crime.”
Siegel hopes a new generation of entrepreneurs come to Haight Street and fill vacant storefronts — there are around a half dozen empty ones near Distractions.
The neighborhood was in a similar rough spot in the 1980s amid the crack epidemic, when Siegel took over a shop called Phoenix, the last smoke shop in the area. Siegel would eventually open up Distractions in 1982 and rode merchandise trends around punk rock, reggae and skateboard culture to today’s electronic dance music.
“Yes, we’re closing, it’s sad … (but) it actually gives opportunity,” he said. “It’s the new, fresh young blood — that’s what we need.”