The District 11 supervisor aims to bring a charter amendment to voters in November.

By Alex Mullaney

Published:April 14, 2026 (inglesidelight.com)

District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen is leading the push to create a public bank.

Chen requested that a charter amendment be drafted to create a municipal financial corporation and public bank, she announced on Tuesday. The amendment is intended to go before voters in November.

“San Franciscans need and deserve bold solutions to address housing affordability, small business vibrancy and climate sustainability, and this is the right time to advance solutions that lead towards a just economic recovery for all San Franciscans,” Chen said in a statement.

A public bank would allow San Francisco to “develop financing tools and lending products that will benefit three of San Francisco’s most consistent priorities: affordable housing, small business, and climate sustainability,” according to a news release.

Public banks are not a new concept. The Bank of North Dakota has been in operation for over a century. And San Francisco has made a number of moves, many of which were enabled by a new state law, to advance the idea.

The San Francisco Public Bank Coalition began advocating for a public bank many years ago. Jackie Fielder, the District 9 supervisor, was among its leaders.

Ingleside native Della Duncan, host of the Upstream Podcast and Co-lead of the San Francisco Doughnut Economics initiative, was involved with the project in its early days.

“Right now, most cities bank with large corporations, which means public money leaves the community as shareholder dividends and often makes loans misaligned with public values,” Duncan said. “A San Francisco public bank would keep that money local — transparent, accountable to the people and invested in the well-being of our communities and ecosystems.”

Alex Mullaney

Alex Mullaney founded The Ingleside Light in 2008 during the peak of San Francisco’s great tradition of neighborhood newspapers. He is the publisher and editor.All articles

(bayresistance.org)

The real question is not just percentage—it’s who votes

By Tim Redmond

April 14, 2026 (48hills.org)

Saikat Chakrabarti, candidate for Congress, is promoting a poll that puts him in second place behind State Sen. Scott Wiener in the top-two primary.

The Chakrabarti campaign paid for the poll, and candidates release internal polls to the press for two reasons: They want to convince donors that they have a chance of winning, or they want to convince donors and potential supporters of other candidates that they’re going to wind up on top.

So let’s look at the poll for a second.

First: It’s very hard to get accurate polling data these days, particularly from a relatively small sample (547 likely voters). Polling relies on a truly random sample, which was easy when everyone had a landline and answered the phone when it rang. Now, pollsters try to reach voters on cell phones, and most young people don’t answer their phones at all, particularly when they don’t know the caller, and from texts, which again have tremendous sampling bias.

The poll was only in English, and some 19,000 voters in the district have requested Chinese-language ballots (and another 4,000 have Spanish-language ballots). Sup. Connie Chan, who was ranked well below the two guys, will probably get a significant number of the Chinese-language voters.

The poll claims a margin of error of four percent. Sorry for the math, but: That means Wiener is somewhere between 29 percent and 37 percent. Chakrabarti is between 24 and 32. Chan is between 9 and 17. So it’s entirely possible that the real numbers are Wiener 28, Chakrabarti 24, and Chan 17, with a lot of undecideds. Again, this counts only the English-speaking voters; if more than half of the Chinese language voters break for Chan, she’s at 20 and Chakrabarti is at 21.

With 527 voters, I’d say the margin of error is probably higher than 4 percent.

I know of no independent polling in the race.

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Chan’s campaign points to a few problems with the poll, including text messages that identified Chakrabarti as the state Senator.

But it demonstrated a few key things.

If you compare this poll to polls taken a few months ago, before Chakrabarti started pouring more than $1 million of his own money into ads and paying more than 200 canvassers to knock on doors, it appears he has picked up about ten points. Roughly half of that came from Wiener, and the rest from “undecided.” Chan is about where she was.

Wiener’s big-money donors clearly don’t want to run against Chakrabarti in the November election, since he has almost as much money as they do. That’s why we’re seeing so many attack pieces targeting Chakrabarti and aimed at young people.

But those attack pieces apparently haven’t been very successful. It’s surprising the Wiener IE, which has gobs of money, hasn’t spent more—unless the polling indicates that the attack messages aren’t working.

Chakrabarti tested them and his possible responses in the poll:

The real race at this point is not about which candidate is more popular; it’s about who votes. There’s no presidential primary, and the primary for governor of California is such a godawful mess that some progressives might sit it out (who are you voting for? Is there anyone any of us on the SF left are walking precincts or carrying signs for? I’m not seeing it.)

But there are deeply contested supervisor races, with a lot of money and voter outreach, in D2 and D4. D2 is conservative, a place where Wiener has been popular in the past—but a lot of residents don’t like the fact the Wiener has made the gigantic Marina Safeway project possible. If Chan and Chakrabarti can get that message out in D2, it could undercut Wiener.

D4 is mixed, but has a lot of Chinese voters and union members, which could help Chan. Mayor Lurie and his big-money operation are supporting Alan Wong, and several other serious candidates are canvassing for voters—and none of them are openly supporting Wiener, who backed closing the Great Highway.

I’d like to see an independent poll of 1,000 likely voters, in Chinese, Spanish, and English, adjusted for where we’re likely to see the highest turnout. Papers like the Chron used to do that, but it’s a $25,000 nut, and they no longer care.

So let’s take all these polls for what they are—a snapshot, not always a good one, of a moment in time with a select number of voters, released by campaigns for political reasons.

I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying it’s not necessarily right.

Full disclosure: My daughter works on the Connie Chan for Congress campaign.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

Posted in Politics and Movements: US

As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was advised not to investigate the bombings, Pentagon officials expressed support for strikes on land, ostensibly against drug traffickers.

by Julia Conley April 14, 2026 (therealnews.com)

US Deputy State Department Spokesman Tommy Pigott speaks during a press briefing at the State Department in Washington, DC, on July 31, 2025. Photo by OLIVER CONTRERAS/AFP via Getty Images

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on April 14, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

The former president of a top international human rights watchdog views the United States’ monthslong campaign of bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean as a clear-cut case of “murder,” he told The Intercept Monday, but he warned that pressure from the Trump administration may stop the body from investigating the Pentagon’s actions.

Juan Méndez, a former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, noted that a month after the IACHR held a hearing on the boat bombing campaign, officials “may well feel that this is a very delicate situation, and if they take the initiative, they’re going to incur the wrath of the United States.”

The hearing last month was the first of its kind and included testimonies from the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, International Crisis Group, and Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights. The groups presented evidence that the US has been violating both domestic and international law by bombing vessels that it has claimed—without making any evidence publicly available—are involved in drug trafficking. Nearly 170 people have been killed in dozens of strikes, and legal experts worldwide have asserted the US is violating international law and has committed extrajudicial killings—potentially making those involved in the strikes liable for murder.

The hearing was followed by a statement from Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, who said the IACHR had “strayed far outside its mandate” by looking into the boat attacks—as the family of one man killed in a bombing requested it to—and accused the ACLU of trying to manipulate the body.

“The United States calls on the commission to adhere to its statute and rules of procedure in the future and avoid inserting itself into matters that are in active domestic litigation and fall outside the human rights sphere,” said Pigott. “Convening hearings under these circumstances risks undermining—not strengthening—the credibility of the inter-American human rights system.”

Pigott also called on the commission to “redirect its focus toward the individual petitions languishing on its docket, sometimes for decades.” He did not mention specific petitions or issues the IACHR should focus on.

Carl Anderson, a legal adviser at the State Department, also rebuked the commission for holding the proceedings.

“If the United States cuts the funding, they probably would have to shut down—at least for a while.”

A person with close ties to the IACHR told The Intercept that Pigott’s demand that the commission focus on other topics pointed to a pressure campaign aimed at stoking fear that the IACHR could lose its funding.

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President Donald Trump’s zeroed out US contributions to the commission during his first term in 2018, and withdrew some funding the following year due to its support for abortion rights. The administration terminated funding last year for at least 22 programs under the IACHR’s parent body, the Organization of American States, of which the US is the largest international funder.

“They are stretched for funding,” Méndez told The Intercept. “And if the United States cuts the funding, they probably would have to shut down—at least for a while.”

Stuardo Ralón, the IACHR’s current president, denied that there is “pressure from the United States on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” but suggested it may not conduct a comprehensive investigation into the Trump administration’s boat bombings—saying the body “does not conduct investigations.”

The Intercept noted that the IACHR has conducted numerous investigations that it has publicly acknowledged and described as such, including into US immigration detention centers and the kidnapping and apparent killing of 43 students in Mexico in 2014.

Ralón told the outlet that it has not yet taken any steps to launch an investigation into the strikes following the hearing, and said it “will continue to monitor the situation in accordance with its mandate.”

Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s human rights program, emphasized that “the commission is within its competency and its bounds to fully investigate the egregious violations of international law happening in its own backyard.”

“We have asked the commission to fulfill its responsibilities as the premier regional human rights body to conduct a fact-finding investigation of these heinous killings,” Dakwar told The Intercept, “and to ensure that no country can act in this fashion because that will have severe implications on human rights in the region and beyond.”

As the State Department has pushed the IACHR away from probing the legality of the boat bombings, administration officials like Joseph Humire, acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, have warned that the attacks at sea are “just the beginning” of what officials claim is an effort to defeat drug cartels—against which Congress has not authorized any military action.

US Southern Command announced a joint ground operation with Ecuador last month to defeat “narco-terrorists.”

Humire said the Pentagon supports “joint land strikes,” while Gen. Francis Donovan, the head of US Southern Command who has been directing the boat attacks, told the Senate Armed Service Committee that the Pentagon is moving toward “a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network.”

“I believe,” he said, “these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.More by Julia Conley

US Vice President JD Vance speaks with Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet during an event at Akins Ford Arena in Athens, Georgia on April 14, 2026

 (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Audience members also booed the vice president, who claimed the Trump administration “solved” Israel’s war on Gaza.

Brett Wilkins

Apr 15, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

US Vice President JD Vance was repeatedly heckled over the Trump administration’s support Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the US-Israeli war on Iran as he spoke at a Turning Point USA event in Georgia, underscoring frustration among a MAGA base betrayed by promises of a peace presidency.

Vance was discussing his disagreement with Pope Leo XIV’s criticism of the Trump administration’s xenophobic immigration policies and record-breaking warmongering when someone in the audience at the Akins Ford Arena near the University of Georgia in Athens yelled out, “Jesus Christ doesn’t support genocide!”

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“I agree,” said Vance. “Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide, whoever yelled that out from the dark. He certainly does not. I think that’s pretty easy.”

Some audience members booed Vance’s response, and the heckler shouted, “You’re killing children!”

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Hundreds of children have been killed by US-Israeli bombing of Iran, including 168 students and staff at a girls’ school in Minab who were massacred in a February 28 US cruise missile strike. More than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel’s war and siege on Gaza, according to local officials and international advocacy groups.

While Jesus never supported genocide in the New Testament of the Bible, his purported father commands his followers to commit genocide several times in the Old Testament. Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes—have invoked God’s biblical command to “slay” everyone in the Hebrews’ ancient enemy of Amalek, “man and woman, infant and suckling,” as divine sanction to lay waste to Gaza.

Attorneys in the South Africa-led International Court of Justice case against Israel have pointed to Israeli leaders’ references to Amalek as evidence of genocidal intent, a key legal requisite for proving genocide.

Vance responded to the heckler, asserting that when President Donald Trump took office, “the humanitarian situation in Gaza was an absolute catastrophe.”

“So if you want to complain about what happened in Gaza,” he continued, “why don’t you complain about Joe Biden in the last administration? We’re the administration that solved that problem.”

On January 20, 2025, former President Joe Biden’s last day in office, the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 47,035 people had been killed by Israeli forces in the coastal strip since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. Since Trump’s return to power, Israeli forces have killed at least 25,280 more Palestinians in Gaza.

The Biden and Trump administrations have both supported Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid, diplomatic cover including vetoes of numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions, and repeated denials that the leading US ally in the Middle East is committing genocide.

While there is growing unease among many in the MAGA base over Trump’s broken promises of no new wars and lower gasoline prices on “day one,” critics note that this opposition does not indicate a full anti-war shift, as many of the president’s supporters just want the war to end as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Turning Point USA was co-founded by far-right firebrand Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead last year while trying to deflect blame for US gun violence on gangs. Kirk explicitly opposed any US regime change war in Iran.

In a bid to counter Gen Z’s rightward shift during the 2024 election, progressive activist Elise Joshi on Wednesday launched More Perfect University, which aims to mobilize young voters by focusing on the economic issues that affect them.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Brett Wilkins

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

15 April 2026/SF Politics/Leanne Maxwell (SFist.com)

Several California gubernatorial candidates attended two forums in Sacramento Tuesday where they discussed issues affecting Latino and Hispanic communities throughout the state. While one forum heavily discussed the Swalwell scandal, the other left him out of the discussion entirely.

Seven Democratic candidates for governor took the stage in Sacramento Tuesday night at Nuestra Voz ’26, just hours after Congressman Eric Swalwell’s official resignation — though his name didn’t come up during the discussion, as KTVU reports. However, the Swalwall scandal was discussed between a panel of six candidates earlier in the day at another event in Sacramento, hosted by the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, according to KPIX.

Swalwell’s absence reportedly gave the remaining candidates the opportunity to win over his former supporters Tuesday.

Per KTVU, Nuestra Voz’s discussion centered on immigration, voting rights, housing, and the growing role of artificial intelligence. Moderators questioned candidates on cooperation with federal authorities versus state protections, as well as how they would address barriers to voting and prepare younger Californians for an AI-driven workforce.

In response to cooperating with the federal government, ​​​​former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that the line starts with constitutional protections, arguing warrants should be required for enforcement actions in homes, workplaces, hospitals, and schools.

Former Congresswoman Katie Porter said California must protect voting systems from political interference, while San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pointed to legal challenges and media pressure as tools to counter federal overreach, according to KTVU.

On affordable housing, former Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra called for expanded homeownership access and stronger rent protections.

Entrepreneur Tom Steyer proposed taxing the AI industry to fund job retraining programs, and former State Controller Betty Yee emphasized introducing students to technology and digital skills at an early age.

As KPIX reports, six of the candidates also attended a panel at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day in Sacramento, where they discussed California’s budget deficit and affordable health care and childcare — in addition to the Swalwall fallout.

Steyer voiced support for a single-payer healthcare system, and Mahan highlighted efforts to expand childcare by helping local workers open home-based daycare centers.

The Swalwall scandal was repeatedly mentioned at the Chamber of Commerce forum in relation to accountability in upper levels of government.

Yee said the moment calls for new leadership, noting that the public is now paying closer attention to the governor’s race due to the scandal, per KPIX.

Becerra called the news of Swalwell’s resignation a chance for a new beginning.

“It’s really day one, really, for this campaign for everyone,” he said.

The trouble is, it isn’t day one, and the primary is fast approaching on June 2. Even prior to Swalwell bowing out, state Democratic Party leaders were expressing anxiety at there being too many candidates still in race, dividing the Democrat electorate to the point that the two Republicans in the race could end up getting the most votes in the primary.

State Democratic party chair Rusty Hicks vowed last month to spend money on weekly polling in order to shame the lowest-polling candidates into dropping out of the race. “I would simply say if people are afraid of information, you have to ask why,” Hicks said.

Swalwell had been leading the pack in recent polls, but Steyer and Porter were close behind and the only other candidates polling in double digits.

Election officials are set to start mailing out primary ballots in less than three weeks.

Related: SoCal Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Trumper Running for Governor, Seizes 650,000 Ballots From Last November In Concerning Move

Top image: California Immigrant Policy Center/Facebook

Protesters hold a banner reading “Stop Sending Arms to Israel” outside the White House in Washington, DC in this undated photo. 

(Photo by Amnesty International)

“The fact that 40 of 47 Democratic senators voted to withhold military hardware from Israel is a new high water mark in holding Israel accountable,” said one observer, who called the final vote “still troubling.”

Brett Wilkins

Apr 15, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

US senators on Wednesday voted down a pair of resolutions aimed at blocking US bomb and bulldozer sales to Israel as it continues its genocidal war on Gaza and devastating bombardment and mass displacement in Lebanon.

Upper chamber lawmakers voted 59-40 against advancing SJ Res. 32, a joint resolution introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) “providing for congressional disapproval of the proposed foreign military sale to the government of Israel of certain defense articles and services.”

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At issue are $295 million worth of Caterpillar D9 series bulldozers, spare parts, and related services. Israel often uses the bulldozers to destroy homes and other civilian structures in Gaza, the illegally occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Lebanon.

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In 2003, American human rights activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Caterpillar D9 while attempting to stop the demolition of a home in Rafah, Gaza.

Entire villages and hamlets have been razed using the dozers as Israel ethnically cleanses the occupied territories to make way for Jewish-only settler colonies.

The SJ Res. 32 roll call was followed by a 63-36 vote against advancing SJ Res. 138, which was introduced by Sanders and Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.). The measure rejects the proposed sale of 12,000 BLU–110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bomb bodies and associated items and services.

Experts point to Israel’s use of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated Gaza—and the Israeli military’s loosened rules of engagement effectively allowing unlimited civilian casualties in strikes targeting a single Hamas militant of any rank—as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured.

Sanders said on social media after the votes, “Today, more than 80% of the Democratic caucus stood with the American people and voted to block US military aid to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his horrific, illegal wars.”

“We are making progress,” the senator continued. “When we started this effort there were just 11 votes, now there are 40.”

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Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said following Wednesday’s votes:

A vote to approve arms sales to Israel at this time would be seen as a message of approval for [President Donald] Trump and Netanyahu’s disastrous war against Iran. I will not send that message.

Why would we send American military weapons that could prolong, escalate, or worsen this horrible situation in the Middle East? I say no more. The Senate should express its opposition to Trump and Netanyahu’s needless war in Iran and seek to stop it in any way it can.

There is no military solution to this crisis. We must solve this at the negotiating table. We must stop these arms sales and end this war now.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy (CIP) and a former adviser to Sanders, slammed Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) who voted to block the resolutions, for their “cowardly bullshit.”

Duss noted that just last September, Coons said that “if there is no change in direction from the Israeli administration, for the first time I would seriously consider” voting to block arms transfers to Israel.

“Israeli behavior has only gotten worse since then,” Duss said.

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Wednesday’s votes followed numerous previous failed attempts to limit US arms transfers to Israel since it launched its genocidal retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing.

Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at CIP, said on X that “the fact that 40 of 47 Democratic senators voted to withhold military hardware from Israel is a new high water mark in holding Israel accountable for violating US and international law.”

“It is still troubling that a few Democrats and all Republicans voted to supply the arms,” he added.

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The Biden and Trump administrations have lavished Israel with more than $21 billion in armed aid since October 2023, despite the International Criminal Court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Brett Wilkins

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

By Tara Duggan,Staff WriterUpdated April 15, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)

Gift Article

Philz Coffee in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood has continued to display Pride flags despite its CEO reiterating the prohibition in a leaked memo.Giselle Garza Lerma/S.F. Chronicle

After incurring backlash and national media coverage over its decision to remove Pride flags from its cafés, San Francisco-born Philz Coffee doubled down on the policy and provided more details about it in a confidential memo sent to employees last Friday that was obtained by the Chronicle.

The memo from CEO Mahesh Sadarangani was printed on company letterhead marked “confidential.” It references Sadarangani’s visits to stores in recent weeks to talk about “changes to our store decor & flags” and reiterates that the new policy “may include removing a variety of flags and other decor.” 

Sadarangani did not apologize for the flag policy in the memo, but expressed some regret for how it was communicated, writing, “We hear and deeply understand that we did not handle changes to store decor as well as we should have, especially as true allies to the community. Some of our team members have shared that those changes felt personal.”

A manager at a San Francisco Philz location said the staff was “blindsided” by the decision and unaware of it until it was made public by the Chronicle. The employee asked to remain anonymous without authorization to speak publicly and feared repercussions.

Philz did not immediately respond to questions about the timeline for removing flags or comments Sadarangani made in the memo.

The memo also describes the company’s plans for a new “unifying” piece of artwork that would apparently be placed in every store. “Over the last year, we have been working on custom Philz artwork to set the expectations for a safe and inclusive space for all, including our LGBTQIA+ community,” it reads. “We want one piece of artwork that unifies all of Philz, that openly showcases our commitment to honoring the uniqueness and diversity of each person who enters our place.” 

Philz staff will be involved in the development of that artwork, according to the memo. “You will have the opportunity to participate in the selection process so that the piece is truly a collaboration of us as a collective whole.”

Sadarangani reiterates in the memo that the company is not “mov(ing) away from supporting the LGBTQIA+ community,” detailing a number of forthcoming initiatives. For Pride month, Philz will continue to donate to LGBTQ+ organizations and it will hold a “second annual” company sticker contest to which employees can contribute artwork. Philz will also continue to have a committee for DEIB or diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, “including those in the LGBTQIA+ community,” the memo reads. 

Pride flags remained in place in the Castro store and at least one other San Francisco location Wednesday. 

On April 8, Philz Coffee confirmed to the Chronicle that it would remove Pride flags from all of its locations after an online petition against the policy began circulating on social media. The backlash was swift, with people expressing outrage on social media, especially over a statement from Sadarangani saying that the company’s “longstanding support of the LGBTQIA+ community is unchanged.” News outlets across the country covered the controversy, while Bay Area LGBTQ+ organizations issued statements condemning the decision and organized a small rally in front of the Castro location last Friday.

“The rainbow flag is a symbol for the queer community, and this is the heart of the queer movement here in the Castro,” Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride, told the Chronicle during the rally. “We can’t just not say anything.”

Organizers of the petition, a group calling itself Philz Coffee Baristas, did not respond to requests to comment. Close to 6,800 people have signed the petition so far. 

Philz was founded in the Mission District in 2003 by Phil and Jacob Jaber, who stepped away after Sadarangani became CEO in 2021. Many critics of Philz’s new policy tie it to the purchase of the company last year by private equity firm Freeman Spogli & Co., which also owns Popeyes Chicken and El Pollo Loco, for a reported $145 million, according to Mission Local, though the company did not provide details of the deal. It now has more than 70 locations in California as well as in Chicago.

“Now we have this private equity firm coming into San Francisco and trying to say that our Philz Coffee locations can’t have a Pride flag. That is really gross,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said in a video statement.

April 15, 2026|Updated April 15, 2026 4:42 p.m.

Tara Duggan

Reporter

Tara Duggan is a reporter in the Chronicle’s Food & Wine department, where she has been on the staff for over 20 years, and was also recently a reporter on Chronicle’s climate and environment team. She wrote investigations into nonprofit organizations and businesses as well as the narrative story “The Fisherman’s Secret,” a finalist for an Online Journalism Award. She also won a James Beard Award for her food journalism and is the author of five cookbooks. Reach her at tduggan@sfchronicle.com

The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder Apr 15, 2026 The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder Watch the Majority Report live Monday–Friday at 12pm EST on YouTube or http://www.Majority.fm To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. You can use this number to connect with either the US Senate or the House of Representatives.