‘Please don’t tear it down’: San Francisco losing its 83-year-old Coca-Cola

Another piece of San Francisco’s history will soon disappear: The glowing Coca-Cola sign that has stood sentinel for Bay Bridge commuters for nearly a century is coming down.

Removal of the double-faced red and white billboard, a staple of the South of Market neighborhood and San Francisco’s cityscape since 1937, is a sign of the times, Coca-Cola confirmed Monday. The company said it is shifting its advertising dollars away from traditional marketing to digital platforms.

“While we, like many San Franciscans, will miss seeing the sign, we made the difficult decision to not renew the lease as part of our efforts to focus on other digital media platforms that support the growth of our overall beverage portfolio,” said Dora Wong, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola North America.

Wong said the original billboards were installed on the rooftop of a newly constructed building just as the Bay Bridge was opened.

YesCo Signs LLC of Salt Lake City, Utah, now controls the sign at 701 Bryant St. on top of Antonio’s Antiques. According to District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney, the antique store was not able to reach an agreement with Coca-Cola to keep the sign standing.

YesCo filed July 1 for a permit to remove the billboard and its support structure. The permit was granted Oct. 20, and “the applicant is allowed to begin work as soon as the permit is issued,” said Christine Gasparac, assistant director for San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection. The cost to remove the sign is $100,000.

Haney said the city had been working with Coca-Cola to prevent the removal of the billboard, but if efforts failed, they’d like to preserve the sign somewhere in San Francisco.

“The sign holds symbolic meaning and value to many people in San Francisco, and we would at least like to have it protected and not destroyed,” Haney said. “It brings a lot of memories and nostalgia, and it’s a quintessential San Francisco thing. It’s hard to imagine a better advertisement for Coca-Cola.”

San Francisco has had a contentious relationship with the beverage industry since the city passed a first-in-the-nation law in 2016 that required display advertisements for sugary drinks to carry warning labels of increased risks of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay. The law went into effect after a federal judge rejected a challenge from the beverage industry.

PepsiCo and other soda companies argued against…