In a unanimous vote the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the naming of San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 1 after the city’s first openly gay politician and gay rights hero, the late Harvey Milk.
The legislation went to the full board for approval after the city’s Board of Supervisors budget and finance committee voted last month to recommend it.
“I can’t tell you the depth of what this means not only to the LGBT community but also to its allies,” Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said at the board meeting.
“Rather than turn the community inward, he asked that we turn the community outward and look at other marginalized communities and embrace them and give them empathy, be angry with them and adopt their goals as well,” Ammiano said of Milk.
“He fought for progressive causes and tried to make the world a better place,” said former Supervisor Harry Britt. Britt was appointed to the board in 1979 by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein to fill Milk’s seat after his assassination. “It was a great surprise as a gay man to see that it was possible,” Britt said of Milk’s accomplishments. “And it means a great deal to me, as it still does to lesbians, gay men and queers of various kinds all around the world, that we’re still honoring him.”
The terminal’s naming has been a long time in the making, as former Supervisor David Campos first attempted it in 2013, however, that idea was abandoned in the face of opposition. Instead, Campos reached a compromise agreement to form a committee to recommend which of SFO’s terminals or other facilities should be renamed.
In 2017, following a vote by the Airport Facilities Naming Advisory Committee in support of the renaming, Supervisor Hillary Ronen introduced new legislation to begin the process of renaming the terminal.
In other SFO news…..
San Francisco International Airport is giving the cold shoulder to a proposal to open up its first sex shop.
The Airport Commission has opted not to lower revenue requirements for its Terminal 3 small business pop-up program, as requested by an Oakland sex shop owner who would like to participate. Instead, the commission has approved a clothier and luggage store to occupy the space.
Nenna Joiner, owner of Feelmore Adult Gallery in Oakland, previously asked the commission to lower its $250,000 annual revenue threshold to apply for a one-year business pop-up program in the airport.
This is the final year of the pop-up program, which launched in 2013, making it the likely end of the road for Joiner’s efforts to reform it
Joiner still wants to sell vibrators, lubricant and other sex aids at the airport. She’s not giving up on opening her store in some fashion, regardless of the pop-up program, she told the Examiner.
“I’m going to keep on trying,” she said.
Joiner said naming an airport terminal after Milk gives two additional reasons to open up the airport to her business: Milk was gay, yes, but also owned a camera store in the Castro neighborhood.
“Harvey Milk was a small businessman,” Joiner said