Funny my 6yo commented on how they looked the other day. It seems they would belong to the coffee shop, no? Did you ask them and then discovered they are part of the property?

On a related note, whomever owns that property seems to do the bare minimum to keep it maintained. I wonder what methods there are for the city to ask/force them to maintain the property better?

I've lived in HB since 1995, and this, if you want to call it, "a shopping center", is a meer shadow of how it used to be when we first moved here. It used to be busy, vibrant and "the place to be", with nice, fully occupied store fronts with just the right variety of businesses/services, etc, and neighbors using, probably these "exact same" tables and umbrellas every weekend...but NOT now...it's more of a "ghost town", and it's an embarrassment and disgusting, to say the least. My dentist, Dr. Ting moved out YEARS ago, and his prior location sits vacant to this day....such a sad, sad story about an absentee landlord who has no motivation to invest in this property...SHAME on them...!!!

This complaint concerns private property and should be brought up to the property owner/management. Your request is outside the jurisdiction of the City of Alameda.

The coffee shop reports that they do not maintain this sitting area -it is part of the public space at the Landing and the manager has done nothing after many complaints going back several weeks.

I agree about private property, but also the city should have some method to communicate with a property owner not maintaining their property well. This is all I can find about the owner. https://imgur.com/a/eeE1T I suppose asking a tenant might reveal more, but they may only know the property management co.

Jack, I understand that you do not like the setting and you feel it is an eye sore. However, the entire landing is PRIVATE property for which the owner has opened to others. It IS NOT public property in the sense that Alameda owns it.

Technically, you are merely invited onto the property. They can simply tell you to leave if the owners wanted to. It’s NOT a public space.

This is the same thing as saying that you feel that your neighbors yard is an eye sore. Your neighbor can simply tell you to not go on his property if you felt that way.

Unless there is clearly a hazard which can lead to significant bodily harm, the City has no authority here to tell the landowner to buy new umbrellas.

But this is potentially dangerous! If your neighbor had something hazardous in their property the city would do something about it. This is not just an eyesore.

i doubt anything is dangerous here to give rise to the City to step in to enforce them to buy new umbrellas, tables, and chairs. You guys are living on another planet and not being realistic. You are wasting both the community members time and public funds to tend address ironic complaints.

Let’s see how city staff responds to this complaint. I’m ready for a laugh.

I tend to agree the city won't and probably can't do much (or anything about it). I suggest directing complaints to the property management company. The owner is hidden behind a LLC, but public records show the LLC's lawyer to be: http://dgflaw.com/bio-david.html

The part that is dangerous is the umbrellas with sharp parts sticking out in ways that could injure passersby. Alameda does indeed have a method to force landowners to correct this kind of danger: Code Enforcement. Unfortunately, I have been told by the city management that even in two cases where persons have already been injured because of code violations, the city does not consider those two properties within the "top 300" of their priorities. This is in the case of code violations that ave potentially fatal to residents and neighbors, and that have been reported years ago.

I suggest just going over and removing the umbrellas from the tables, stripping the cloth off, and recycling them through ACI. No one can be faulted for doing maintenance the property owner refuses to do, and the city of Alameda refuses to require the property owner to do, to protect persons from the risk of injury.

Code Enforcement can only enforce laws that are part of the Alameda Municipal Code. There's nothing in there that requires umbrellas to be positioned in any particular fashion. Now if someone is stupid enough to run into these umbrellas even though they are in an "open and obvious" condition then perhaps some ambulance chasing attorney might try to paint a case of negligence. However, there's nothing code enforcement can do if there is no code prohibiting a particular condition. You're welcome to cite the code here if I missed it.

Btw, it is UNLAWFUL for you to go over and remove umbrellas from tables, strip off the cloth, and recycle them on your own. This is PRIVATE property and those umbrellas and tables belong to the property owner.... not you. We are all invitees onto this property for the purposes of conducting business. If you do not find that the property is kept up to YOUR standards then it is your option to not patronize the businesses here. You do not have a right to create your own quarters on this property so that it meets your needs. It DOES NOT belong to you nor does it belong to the City of Alameda.

Dangers are no less code violations because they are open and obvious to sighted persons. The danger would not be open and obvious to a person with poor or no eyesight, as is the case with many elderly and disabled persons, and children. A dangerous condition on private property does not need to be specifically listed in the Alameda code to constitute a dangerous condition the property owner can be required to abate.

Nonetheless, it is a waste of time to look this up, as Alameda Code Enforcement will not act, even if some disabled or elderly person or child is injured on this property. SeeClickFix is full of documentation that Alameda Code Enforcement--by this I mean McFann, Givens and Fullard--are unwilling or unable, in a competence sense, to enforce the municipal codes that protect the citizens of Alameda from much more dangerous code violations. The property owner knows there is no code enforcement in Alameda. That is why I suggest self help, as trying to get code enforcement to care about the safety of Alameda residents will only result in retaliation, and further dangers to the residents as the property owner becomes more certain there will never be any consequences from Code Enforcement.

Regardless of potential liability for injuries to his patrons, the coffee shop owner should just remove the umbrellas, properly dispose of them, and tell the property owner in writing that he has done so for the safety of his patrons and passersby, as the owner failed to do so after repeated requests. The blight is obviously hurting his business, as at this point the umbrellas are at the point of being dumped items.

Anyone who wants to have a copy of my comments on this needs to save them on their own computer or print them out, as SCF allows Alameda Code Enforcement to remove comments that in any way indicate they are not getting their jobs done. See the little whistle next to my name? I'm a whistleblower on this issue, going through the city hierarchy to correct Code Enforcement's failures and retaliation against endanger residents who report code violations.

It is not unlawful for the coffee shop owner to perform maintenance on the property his patrons are entitled to use, and he know his patrons are using, and are likely to be injured by using, when the landlord has failed to do so after numerous requests. I agree with Anonymous that Alameda Code Enforcement is not a route to getting this safety hazard fixed, although for different reasons. I also agree that random persons should not be removing dangerous dumped junk from this landlord's property; I was suggesting that the coffee shop owner do so. This is no different than a residential tenant asking a landlord repeatedly to repair a dangerous condition, and when the landlord fails to do so, paying for the repair herself. The tenant should not just sit around and wait to be injured, they should fix the problem themselves, regardless of whether they ever intend to seek reimbursement from the landlord.

You all will have to solve this yourselves, someone is having my posts deleted and blocked before posting, so I can't help you.

Anyone can claim that something is dangerous. The fact that Code Enforcement will not address these issues means that there is no danger.... at least its not dangerous per their definition.

There is nothing to resolve here. The umbrellas, tables, and chairs are a non-issue here. What this really is all about is a customer complaint. I mind as well start posting on SeeClickFix about how the Bay Farm safeway has a very poor selection of fruits and produce! Perhaps I can get the City of Alameda involved here too!!!

To all the critics who said we’d get nowhere with this — the city determined that this was a code violation and contacted the landlord. The umbrellas were replaced today!!!!

Hooray!!!

Umbrellas were replaced.

Thanks for fixing this request!

Thank you!!

I'm so glad to be proved wrong! Thank you, Code Enforcement for looking into this and getting it resolved so quickly. Good job! Thanks also to the residents who went ahead and got this before
Code Enforcement.

Very nice resolution to a public nuisance issue. We can once again invite folks to enjoy a nice relaxing beverage break and not feel like the community doesn’t care about its public spaces. Thanks!!