Please help save this theater. The Metro is one of the best and last remaining neighborhood movie theaters in San Francisco. It is an important attraction for the Union Street neighborhood commercial district and draws visitors from throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area. It is also a significant historic resource designed by prominent architects the Reid Brothers, a beautiful and unique community asset that can never be replaced. The Metro is also the original home of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which was first organized in 1957. Also, and equally important, the 1941 murals in the Metro’s interior are the work of Anthony Heinsbergen, considered the foremost designer of North American movie theater interiors and are in mint condition due to a 1998 renovation.

Stanley Goldstein

San Francisco

Pot club disappointment

I am usually a big fan of Ken Garcia, but this time I am disappointed in him about his slam job on North Beach’s pot club. First of all, he mentions the club is several hundred feet from St. Peter and Paul school as well as a playground and a library. This is true, but keep in mind this is a distance of a football field — not exactly next door to these facilities. I have lived in North Beach for more than 10 years and I wasn’t even aware of the club for a year or so after it opened. I walk past this club almost every day and never see any “gang bangers and drug peddlers” hanging around. In fact, I once saw the proprietor tell a couple of his customers to take his stash and leave. As far as the permit process involved, what else is new when it comes to our archaic permit process?

Rick Junsch

San Francisco

Academy cuts

In response to your story “Police academy in city’s budget cross hairs” (The Examiner, April 21), it’s unconscionable that our supervisors are even considering this idea which would further endanger public safety. Surely in a $6 billion budget (a budget bigger than that of 20 states), our supervisors can find the funding to maintain adequate police services. Perhaps if our supervisors weren’t wasting taxpayer money on funding positions to facilitate illegal immigration, debating foreign policy and shrinking The City’s tax base by anti-business mandates that drive small businesses out of The City, we wouldn’t be facing this problem. But that would require supervisors who are willing to think outside of the ideological box which our current supervisors aren’t willing to do. In November the voters have an opportunity to fix that situation and by extension so many other problems as well.

E.F. Sullivan

San Francisco

Torch not for protests

In his letter April 21, Joshua Kyle says that rerouting the torch relay dashed Tibetan-Americans’ best hope for conveying their message. Unlike the segregation policies of Selma, Ala., to which he also alludes, the Olympic Games and the associated torch relay are not legitimate targets of protest for Tibetan-Americans, Darfur genocide protesters, Falun Gong practitioners, nor any of the long list of other causes whose legitimate target is the Chinese government. If the IOC had decided to hold the Olympics at the North Pole there would probably be protesters wanting to get publicity for global warming and the melting of the Arctic ice sheet. The Olympics is not the problem. The Olympics is the one chance every four years for the human community to celebrate our common humanity and our universal love of sports. The Olympic Games should be declared off-limits to politics, and it should be declared a “no conflict” zone no matter where it is held.

Gene Eplett

San Francisco

Think before you protest

Educated Americans should think outside the box before showing their sympathy to the recent Tibetan movement. We should ask ourselves:

1. How much do we know about Tibet, its history, current situation and its future? We can do very simple research using the Internet. We will find lots of information about Tibet. There is short clip on youtube, that shows what we need to know about Tibet.

2. What kind of person is the Dalai Lama? Is he really a spiritual leader or does he just try to achieve his own political agenda by using his and others’ religious beliefs?

3. Who and what agencies sponsor the Tibetan movement?

After finding out the answers to those questions, we will find out that we should really think outside the box, a box usually set up by a small group of smart and sneaky people.

Tony Leung

San Francisco

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