AN ACTUAL LETTER THAT WAS SENT:

Subject: PLEASE APPROVE THE LEASE! - TWIN PEAKS AUTO CARE

From: RD

Date: 7/12/2024, 11:13 AM

To:   board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org

Dear Board of Supervisors,

This is in support of the lease to be heard on July 30th at the Board of Supervisors.

Twin Peaks Auto Care (TPAC) is an important part of our community! In fact it is an anchor business in this Twin Peaks retail district, drawing customers to the other establishments.

The convenience of getting gas and shopping done in one stop is a big draw, especially for daily commuters. You can get everything you need to meet the demands of modern life in one compact shopping district. The perfect balance of services here on Twin Peaks would be irreparably harmed if TPAC were to disappear. Many other retail areas in SF have declined significantly, please don't let this happen to Twin Peaks!
 

All of us up here on Twin Peaks rely on this service station at least once a week and many more often than that. Every neighborhood in this City needs the proper infrastructure to provide for a good quality of life. Here at the top of the hill is a near perfect mix of services that are essential for daily life: the Twin Peaks Service Station, Tower Market, CVS pharmacy, Round Table Pizza, coffee, a bank, a bar, a couple of restaurants, a dentist, a gym, a place of worship, a dry cleaners and a physical therapist for us seniors with disabilities. In this amazingly compact business district, we could live our entire lives without ever having to descend The Peak.

Not all cars need fuel, but they all need maintenance like tires, brakes, fluids, and repairs. One need only look at the daily cue of cars awaiting service to see how vital TPAC is. The demand for this business's five star rated mechanics would be the envy of any business in our City.

Additionally, denying the lease extension would send two thriving and vital businesses started by hard working successful immigrants into chaos. A vote for this lease is literally a vote in support of the American Dream.

Here is a CBS-5 profile of TPAC and its importance to the neighborhood...

https://youtu.be/tQNu4202XlU?si=eDA2VCFYXuUbgbfE
 

The Twin Peaks Service Station is a vital part of our community. It is a gas station, it's an automobile repair business and it's a convenience market where you can shop long after Mollie Stone's closes for the evening.

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On this premises resides the best automobile maintenance and repair shop I have ever found, who’s crew are absolutely wonderful and amazingly talented people. Ken Lau and his mechanics have a vital business here as is epitomized by their 5-STAR Yelp and Google standings (few businesses in SF achieve such awesome ratings). They have literally saved my life by pointing out my very old dry and cracked tires and warning me about the safety hazard, turns out they were 20 years old. Us Senior Citizens who can't bend down for a detailed look anymore rely on this kind of attention to detail to help us.

The Twin Peaks Auto Care lease is about the jobs and lives of real people, not the dogma of climate that an uninformed few endlessly chant without any knowledge of Twin Peaks Auto Care and its place in our community.

Please take 2 minutes to watch this interview with Ken Lau, the founder of the 5-STAR rated* repair shop at Twin Peaks Auto Care:

https://youtu.be/sMMB1tKKOnk?si=2Ph3N_JzMIrnuDed

Ken and Mike Gharib have built a 5-STAR successful repair business with incredible skills and efficiency that supports an astounding 3,870 to 5,160 people a year (15-20 a day) in the community with their mobility issues, the majority of them Twin Peaks residents.

It's a successful business that employs people who are then able to support their families.

Ken has often expressed his desire to have the business stay on Twin Peaks. He ultimately wants to retire here in this location.

If this lease isn't approved, Ken and Mike Gharib would be devastated. There is no other location here that they could move to and their customers are primarily Twin Peaks residents and the surrounding neighborhoods.

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TPAC owner Michael Gharib is a very nice man and you can tell he cares about his business and his customers. Everything is always so clean at TPAC, all the employees are friendly and helpful, and all the pumps are new and always work great. Gas here is always less than at Chevron and places like that.

Service stations are even more needed in a world of EV's.  Electric cars require maintenance: tires, battery coolant systems, battery replacement, suspension systems, wheel bearings, brakes (they all got em'), air conditioning, and those high-voltage system components break down over time - guaranteed. I know, I have a degree in Electrical Engineering from Cal Poly and 50 years of experience with high voltage battery systems. You can always spot a Tesla or two in the daily mix of cars cued up for repair at TPAC.

Perhaps most importantly, as we evolve to a more EV-based transportation system, there will be a rapidly increasing need for charging stations. All the Amazon, Uber, Waymo and Lyft vehicles are going to need a place to stop and charge while making their rounds in our City. New developments in battery chemistry and thermodynamics will allow for near fully charging in about five minutes, the same amount of time it takes to fill a gas tank. This ultra high amperage charging is something that the Twin Peaks Service Station will evolve into, providing a strategic location near the geographic center of San Francisco to charge, especially for those of us who live in apartment buildings without charging units.

What a tragedy it would be if the Board of Supervisors were to allow the destruction of a prosperous businesses here on Twin Peaks, run by incredibly hard working immigrants who have achieved success and contribute to a great quality of life for THOUSANDS of us residents here on the hill.

Please vote to approve the lease!

Sincerely,

RD

801 Corbett
San Francisco, CA 94131

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A copy of the legislation:​

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