A Tesla crashed into The Mellow SF plant store at the corner of 21st and San Carlos streets in the Mission early Sunday afternoon.
No one was injured.
The collision occurred at 12:15 p.m., according to Lorena Velasco, who owns the store with her husband, David.
“Police were called and arrived quickly, but no report was filed, since the car that ran into our corner was our property manager,” Valesco wrote in an email.
“We’ll have to redo the brick and fix our metal gates,” she added.
Employees were upset enough that they closed the store at 2 p.m., Valesco wrote.
Elizabeth Creely, a Mission resident, was riding her bike west on 21st Street when she came upon the crash.
Creely spoke to the driver of the Tesla, who said she had her car on autopilot to make a right turn onto San Carlos and into her garage. The car, however, wasn’t executing the turn. When the driver went to disengage autopilot, she told Creely, she hit the accelerator by mistake.
The driver and her husband, who was at the scene, declined to give their names. Those on the scene asked if she needed help, but she declined assistance and appeared unhurt, but shaken, Creely said.
Several employees inside the shop at the time of the crash told Creely that they felt it, but no one was hurt, and it appears all of the plants survived.
The store’s camera shows the car crashing into the corner, followed by shoppers and others running out as the horn sounds.
The accident is the latest in a string of incidents in which cars have crashed into buildings situated on Mission District corners, including last week’s incident at the Dovre Club, and another last year at a now-closed Chase branch. In both of those instances, there was considerable structural damage.
Although there was a lot of debris from the Tesla, Creely said, there did not seem to be much damage to The Mellow SF.
Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.
As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.
Right now I’m trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.
