New Year's Eve power outage in San Francisco piles onto frustrations with PG&E

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Thousands of people in the Richmond District lost power on New Year's Eve in the third major outage in two weeks.

About 4,000 PG&E customers lost their electricity around 2 p.m. for a couple of hours on Wednesday.

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"Fresh fish is very perishable, so we try to do what we can, put ice on it, but without the power, it's kind of tough," said Charlie Chang, owner of a sashimi market on 18th St. and Geary Blvd.

"I think the last two or three weeks it's three times minimum, and it's been happening on the busiest days during the Christmas and New Year's holidays," he added.

At Golden Edge Pizza, the owner is considering relocating because of the ongoing outages.

"Cheese has to be, and the meat has to be, at a certain temperature," said Firas Alassad, owner of Golden Edge Pizza, who believes he's lost at least $20,000 over the past few weeks when combining spoiled ingredients and lost customers.

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In a statement, PG&E said in part:

"We understand that the recent series of outages in the area have been both disruptive and frustrating, particularly during the holiday season. Moving forward, we are committed to taking all necessary steps to ensure that our SF neighbors-and all our customers-receive the safe and reliable service they expect and deserve."

Residents are also frustrated with the continued issues, some wanting to sue PG&E.

"I am already talking to a few people who want to start some class action lawsuits. I'd be more than happy to join them in that," said Anthony Vogt, adding he wants "PG&E to be held accountable, it's almost like they know they have a stranglehold on us, so they don't really care what happens."

PG&E is offering a $200 credit for residents and $2,500 for businesses affected by the city-wide Dec. 20 outage.