Ooooh That Smell
Can’t you smell that smell? It’s the smell of chocolate chip cookies. Scented devices have been placed in select bus shelters in the San Francisco area. The smell is designed to entice consumers to think about eating cookies, and then wonder if they–GOT MILK?
I think it is a clever idea, but some “San Francisco values” people are concerned that the homeless will get depressed because they are not able to buy milk and cookies.
I can see it now. The homeless gathered at the bus shelters waving crayon scribbled cardboard signs demanding that the California Milk Advisory Board not let that smell surround them! Will the diabetics be joining them?
See the November 29 post by Adam Engelhart: “A New Smell for Bus Shelters”
I urge my fellow RSS readers to click the “continue reading” link for the expanded version of this post. It’s so worth it.
Once again the outrageous minority will get their way and make San Francisco a laughing-stock. This has national news headlines written all over it. I’m proud to live in such a progressive city, but this is ridiculous.
I rode the bus Saturday on my way to a party and carried a freshly-baked tray of brownies with me– thank goodness I wasn’t kicked off….
Can somone post a list of Muni stations that have been cookie-fied? This i gotta see… er, smell.
They’ve (the city) already yanked the ads, citing environmental (allergy) concerns . . . .
Please, the panhandlers/ homeless in this city make more money from begging than most professional level jobs. AND the city gives them checks, and as one of my friends who was previously homeless said about SF food shelters: If you go hungry in this city, then you need to walk to the next block.
..so the prevalent smell of human feces urine and vomit at all the bus stops isn’t also an “allergy concern” and should be left alone?
Joanna, I really wish you’d go back to Alabama or wherever you came from. You’ve made it clear that you don’t care for San Francisco, its politics, or its people, so what are you still doing here? Go to somewhere run by Republicans where you don’t have to pay those oh-so-high tax rates and put up with those annoying hippies (who you apparently define as anyone who values anything besides control and self-aggrandizement). Just don’t come crying to us when all your wilderness is paved, your oil is gone, and you can’t get health care at any price.
For the rest of you: yes, they pulled the ads, but it was in response to complaints Muni recieved, not on their own initiative. What would you rather have happened–would you rather have seen Muni completely ignore riders? I didn’t go to any of the places where this was installed, but I can imagine the scent getting annoying.
Leftist- are you from SF? I think you are taking something she said way too seriously or personally. I think the post is quite witty and she is just commenting on those annoying people who claim to be liberal but are really quite conservative because they are anti- everying: anti- high rise, anti- homeless reduction, anti- ROTC (which is a very good after school program for at- risk youth), etc. basically, anti- change, which is not at all what liberalism is all about, instead, it is about welcoming change and pushing the envelope for creativity, social progress, what have you.
Her remark of “SF Values people” is a valid one, as a lot of the time irrational thoughts such as “the homeless will get hungry” because of the smell of cookies somehow becomes a valid political debate instead of realizing that, hey, this could be something pretty cool for SF as we could be known as “That city with the cookie smelling bus stops” across the world, which might be good for a change rather than to be known as that city where everybody bitches about the most trivial things and are against any kind of real advancement for this city and its people.
I love SF. I’d love it more if people like “unapologetic leftist” would show a little more tact.
The debate was never publicly “the homeless will get hungry,” that’s just a jokey remark someone tossed out. The debate (and cause) of the takedown has to do with people having allergic reactions to all of the foul chemicals involved in artifical scents.
There is a reason you can buy fragrance-free soap and such, many people have reactions to artifical scents. An environmental group filed complaints and legally had the scent-projectors removed.
Where is the problem?
If certain patterns, such as stripes, and colors, such as orange, make a few people go into epilleptic convulsions, should we ban everything to do with stripes and the color orange in public, everywhere, even in private businesses? This is an honest, not a smart aleck, question, what are people’s thoughts on this subject?
The anti-color orange epilleptic brigade needs to be kicked out of town!
I love San Francsico and I’m not afraid to say it!
I have a question that is not of a PC related variety. In the entire world history of “artificial” smells and scratch-n-sniff, has ANY fake odor of food put in a bus stop, a lobby, or anywhere ever REALLY smelled as good as say, real warm chocochip cookies? (I’m guessing no, but hey!)
And if the scent ISN’T 100% the same as said cookies, would some of the folks here be upset CBS Advertising (which operates the bus shelters for MUNI) took such a concept public?
Relax people. Life is too short to live in a town you hate, or hate your neighbors just because you have shades of difference on an issue. Enjoy the fact we don’t have 10 feet of snow and hailstorms and the like this December.
This morning while driving a customer to the airport, we listened to a news report about the bus shelters scent. My fare sighed and said, “Life is getting too complicated.” I agreed with him.
In the 60’s many new housing developments were springing up in the South Bay. On the East Side of San Jose near Tully and White Roads a new group of homes featured yummy street names. There is Peppermint Dr., Almond, Coconut, Bon Bon, Sugarplum, and Taffy. Somehow piped in through the air conditioning, each of the model homes smelled wonderful. I do not recall having to step over any prospective home buyers.
Somewhere near the Millbrae BART and train station is a chocolate factory. Around the Lunardi’s market, on El Camino Real near Millbrae Ave., the chocolate smell from this factory which is very strong, actually smells of Toll House cookies. I wonder what actions the scent sensitive, and homeless in Burlingame are doing to protect themselves from this hazard?
Life is getting too complicated.
Found this:
By: California Milk Processor Board
Published: Dec 2, 2006 at 07:08
In response to public interest surrounding the GOT MILK? chocolate chip scented devices being placed in select bus shelters in the San Francisco area, we would like to confirm that the “scent” that is being used is generated through the use of a flavor found in foods rather than a fragrance.
The flavor ingredients contained in the product are listed as generally recognized as safe in a reliable published industry association list and/or approved for use in a regulation of the Food & Drug Administration.
The flavoring is housed in protective casings placed in remote areas of the bus shelters.
unapologetic leftist–I hope that the self-proclaimed smartest woman in the world, Hillary, never hears you trying to bad-mouth the south.
Judah,
I think you are missing the point, which is that, yes, we do love this city, but there are certain people who just bitch about EVERYTHING and that this gets in the way of this city’s true potential.
An example that comes to mind is the NIMBYs against hi- rise development in the city which started in the 70s and is the reason that you see such stumpy, boxy, ugly “skyscrapers” downtown instead of tall, slender, internationally recognized buildings. This continues today, with people arguing that “a high rise will ruin my view” without taking into consideration the fact that people need housing in this city and that there is nowhere to build but up, which would in turn help ease the ridculous rents we all pay.
So the argument is that these said people are actually keeping this city down and making it worse than better, which they believe to be opposite.
As a former Oaklander (now Angeleno) who finally became fed up with the extreme political correctness of the Bay Area, I must say that I applaud the comments seen here.
Gives me hope that this once beautiful, free-spirited and truly tolerant city may not be lost entirely to “San Francisco values”.
Hmm, point well taken, but let’s go back to my original point - when in the history of artificial smells has anything smelled as good as what it is supposed to be? Put aside the whining and look at it from a practical “is this REALLY a good idea” pov.
With regards to Burlingame (my home town) - the Chocolate smell is eminating from the Guittard Chocolate Factory. It is really not so bad, but if you were running cross country on a REALLY hot day, it was really not the first thing you’d wanna be smelling while running your ass off in a race.
Still, beats the smell of rendered pork fat and slaughtered pigs at those slaughterhouses South City used to have!
…also beats the smell of bus exhaust, piss and vomit. Why aren’t these people as passionate about getting this stuff eliminated?
Bus fumes though could be elminated if we moved all buses to bio diesel, and then all the bus exhaust would smell like french fries and fried fish! :-)
Wonder if that would fly in San Jose?