{"id":245350,"date":"2012-08-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/hba-focuses-on-sustainability\/"},"modified":"2012-08-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T07:00:00","slug":"hba-focuses-on-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/hba-focuses-on-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"HBA focuses on sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Snooze Eatery receives recognition from City for environmental practices; highlights local biofuel company<\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Antonio Rey | Editor SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"HBA
(l to r) Todd Gloria, Nick Papantonakis and Ana Carvalho (Photo by SDUN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Hillcrest Business Association presented their quarterly member open house on Wednesday, Aug. 29, focusing on facilitating a conversation about sustainable business practices in the Uptown neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Hosted by Snooze, An A.M. Eatery at 3940 Fifth Ave., approximately 60 people were in attendance at the meeting, including Congressmember Susan Davis and Councilmember Todd Gloria. Each spoke, with Davis first to acknowledge Snooze\u2019s environmentally friendly efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know in San Diego we\u2019ve got so many great people that are really working hard on these issues. We want to be at the cutting edge of this,\u201d Davis said. \u201cI know how hard you are all working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis sits on the House Sustainable Energy and Environmental Coalition, a congressional group organized to advance national policies to promote clean energy innovation, develop renewable energy sources and create \u201cgreen-collar,\u201d or environmental, jobs.<\/p>\n

Gloria and Ana Carvalho, an environmental specialist from the City, presented Snooze with an award for their sustainable practices, recognizing the steps the restaurant owners and employees have taken to be a green business. Carvalho, who oversees the City\u2019s recycling and composting programs, said San Diego has one of the best recycling programs in the nation.<\/p>\n

Calling Snooze a \u201crole-model\u201d businesses, Gloria said, \u201cWe have this placard that they can place in their window to acknowledge that they are leaders in sustainability.\u201d He then called on other business owners at the meeting to follow the restaurant\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

Snooze Manager Nick Papantonakis said he was thankful for the award, and called the restaurant business one of the \u201cmost wasteful\u201d industries in which to work. \u201cIt was very important to the owners \u2026 to make sustainability a priority,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a huge focus for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the many ways Snooze works toward healthier environmental practices, Papantonakis pointed out one in particular: their relationship with the San Diego company New Leaf Biofuel.<\/p>\n

New Leaf Biofuel is a commercial-grade biodiesel production company that recycles used vegetable oil \u2013 from Snooze\u2019s fryers, for example \u2013 into a clean-burning, renewable fuel source for diesel engines. Jennifer Case, founder and CEO, spoke at the HBA meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies like Snooze and other restaurants in the area are really helping us to divert landfill waste and \u2026 to cleanout our sewers,\u201d Case said. \u201cMost importantly, they\u2019re reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that come from petroleum diesel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, New Leaf works with San Diego and Chula Vista, providing biofuel for some of both cities\u2019 diesel vehicles. Case announced a new partnership with the San Diego school system, which will convert approximately 500 buses to biodiesel fuel by the 2014 school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSustainability really means to not use up a certain resource,\u201d Case said, \u201cso it\u2019s always going to be renewed. That\u2019s what vegetable oil is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members in attendance were asked to provide a list of sustainable practices they find important. Of the responses, HBA Sponsorship and Concessions Manager Cassandra Ramhap said 60 percent of the feedback was related to plastic-bag use, with some offering suggestions on reducing their use. Suggestions included banning plastic bags and charging customers to use them, among others, she said.<\/p>\n

Gloria complimented the HBA on their work, saying the organization\u2019s 90-year history was an excellent example for other business districts in San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re only as good as the neighborhood organizations that are in our communities. The [HBA] \u2026 has been a wonderful partner, really creating the kind of change and improvements that we want in Council District Three,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I go across the entire city of San Diego, other communities look to Hillcrest because they know that there is amazing stuff going on here.\u201d<\/p>\n

HBA Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls ended the meeting by announcing the organization was in the process of working out a program to implement sustainable practices into their weekly Farmers Market. Papantonakis, who Nicholls said is interested in running for the HBA board in October, also showed interested in seeing a more-sustainable market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we work with our small business association, like the HBA, [and] with our small businesses like Snooze,\u201d Gloria said, \u201cwe can make demonstrable improvements in our neighborhood, that is also actually improving the environment.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snooze Eatery receives recognition from City for environmental practices; highlights local biofuel company By Anthony King | SDUN Editor The Hillcrest Business Association presented their quarterly member open house on Wednesday, Aug. 29, focusing on facilitating a conversation about sustainable business practices in the Uptown neighborhood. Hosted by Snooze, An A.M. Eatery at 3940 Fifth […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"HBA focuses on sustainability","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}