The Marie Harrison Community Foundation filed suit on Monday against Evergood Sausage Co. for operating without a permit and releasing smoke into the surrounding Bayview residential neighborhood.
Evergood cooks and smokes sausages at a facility in the Bayview, where residents and advocates have reported pollutants and odors coming out of its chimney. The company is operating without required permits from the Bay Area Air District and locals have filed at least 16 complaints about various issues including fires, particulate matter emissions and odors.
The air district filed two notices of violation against Evergood in 2024 but did not issue a fine or bring the sausage factory into compliance; the violations are still “pending” in the district’s online records system.
Advocates describe the lack of enforcement as part of a pattern of regulatory leniency toward industrial polluters in Bayview-Hunters Point, which they said harms residents’ health.
Arieann Harrison, the founder and executive director of the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, which is named for her mother, said she hopes the lawsuit will show other pollution-burdened communities how to hold industry to account when regulators don’t act.
“We have to do this to improve the health statistics in the community.” Harrison said. “It’s no use having the health protective agencies protecting the polluters and not us.”
Ralph Borrmann, an air district spokesperson, acknowledged by email to the Public Press that the company was not in compliance with air district regulations.
“The Air District is actively working to bring Evergood back into compliance and determining the appropriate remedy,” Borrmann wrote. “There have been challenges in conducting and completing required source testing, computing emissions and running health risk assessments given the unique source types involved to ensure compliance with health-protective standards.”
Evergood representatives say its facility has systems in place to clean emissions from its smokehouses before they rise through the building’s chimney.
Neither the company nor the air district has established whether the system is adequate for the volume of smoke the operation generates. The air district permitting process would make that determination.
“Our facility operates air scrubbers to treat exhaust from the facility’s ovens and smokehouses, and we began the permit application process for the facility’s smokehouses and scrubbers in 2024 at the Bay Area Air District’s request. That process remains underway as the Air District continues to review our 2024 application,” wrote Sam Singer, an Evergood spokesperson. “We take our responsibilities to our neighbors seriously.”
Singer said also that the facility primarily releases steam, not smoke, from cooking.
Alleged smoke dismissed as steam
On a Monday afternoon in late October, opaque smoke billowed from the Evergood chimney. A light wind fanned it across the street, where it hung in the air around homes. The smoke was thick enough to make this reporter’s eyes water while in front of houses across from the factory. The smokey air was difficult to breathe and made the neighborhood visibly hazy. After about an hour, the plume of smoke had stopped.
Records obtained by the Public Press show Bay Area Air District inspectors repeatedly dismissed smoke and odor complaints, deeming the chimney emissions to be water vapor that merely resembled smoke. Because the facility has not gone through a formal permitting process, the emissions have not been tested for a conclusive determination. Resident complaints contest the inspectors’ claim.
Two complaints filed in 2023 and 2024 reported that residents were unable to use their yards because the smoke was so thick. In 2025, a resident reported that when they left a second-story window less than half an inch open, smoke from the Evergood facility entered their home and set off their kitchen fire alarm even though the resident wasn’t cooking. More reported strong smoke and meat smells. Others reported fires.
Since 2018, residents have filed 16 air quality complaints with the air district regarding particulates, odor and illegal fires, according to records obtained by the Public Press. The Evergood facility’s pollution-emitting units include three smokers and seven ovens, district records show. In July 2024, the air district issued a notice of violation to Evergood for its lack of necessary permits, but the status of that violation is still “pending” with no penalty amount posted.
Borrmann said the Bay Area Air District is following its standard procedures in processing the Evergood-related complaints.
“The Air District responded to and thoroughly investigated each complaint to determine if violations of air quality regulations had occurred. The complaint investigations resulted in the Notices of Violation being issued and the Air District is actively taking steps to resolve the violations,” he wrote.
Smoke and odors are often intermittent, so while a resident might file a complaint at peak intensity, the problem might have subsided by the time the air district performs an inspection. For decades, that challenge has held back effective regulatory enforcement, said Bradley Angel, the executive director of the nonprofit Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice.
Since 2016, the San Francisco Fire Department has responded to five calls at the Evergood facility, according to records obtained by the Public Press that determined two of the episodes were fires.
Additional fires were reported through the air quality complaint system, though the fire department was not summoned in those cases.
Singer, the Evergood spokesman, said there have been no illegal fires and that any air quality complaints are unverified. “Illegal fires” refer to a category of air quality complaints. The district offers specific guidelines around what fires are allowed in commercial kitchens and manufacturing facilities.
Smoke sparks health concerns
Bayview-Hunters Point residents live with a disproportionate share of San Francisco’s industrial pollution. That exposure has elevated rates of respiratory conditions like asthma and other illnesses. From 2013 to 2023, the Bayview zip code had the most asthma-related emergency room visits per year of any zip code in San Francisco, 308 visits per year on average, according to data from the California Health and Human Services Agency.
Evergood’s facility burns wood chips to smoke its sausages. If uncleaned, the emitted smoke carries pollutants including particulate matter into the air outside.
Particulate matter can exacerbate asthma symptoms and set off asthma attacks, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The fine particles can also trigger heart problems like heart attacks, strokes and heart failure. They can lead to burning eyes, a runny nose and inflammation in the airways, leading to coughing and difficulty breathing.
Evergood has operated a manufacturing facility in the Bayview since the 1950s. Harrison first noticed the smoke while working at the Bayview Drop-In Center, a service facility for unhoused people, around the corner from the Evergood factory. While she worked there, from 2000 to 2024, the facility regularly released smoke into the surrounding community, she said.
Ricky Curry, a peer advisor at the drop-in center, said smoke is still a regular occurrence.
“I’m so used to it. There’s some days that it’s crazy,” Curry said. “It hurts your eyes.”
People who visit the center also get exposed, he said. During breakfast and dinner service, they breathe in the smoke while waiting in line outside.
Advocates blast lenient regulation
Evergood makes about 7,000 tons of sausages every year, which are sold in major grocery stores and at Giants, Warriors and Valkyries games. Because production exceeds 1,000 tons, air district rules require that the company apply for a permit.
Greenaction’s Angel said the air district’s failure to follow up on the two Evergood violations it filed in 2024 is part of a pattern of lax regulation.
“It’s business as usual at the air district. They allow polluters to operate without permits, in communities where the air district is required by its own policies to not allow companies to operate without permits,” Angel said. “If you operate a food stand without permits, someone from the city is going to come and shut you down, but for industrial polluters, it’s a different story.”
A 2017 report by investigators at the Golden Gate University Environmental Law and Justice Clinic found that the air district was too lenient with concrete manufacturers releasing particulate matter in Bayview-Hunters Point. The investigation found that regulators responded to unpermitted operations and record-keeping violations with fix-it tickets only, though they warranted penalties.
Harrison hopes the lawsuit will show other communities burdened with industrial air pollution that they can pursue legal action when regulators are slow to act.
“If this works, why not duplicate it across California?” Harrison said. “I’ve got more days behind me than in front of me, and I want to make sure the next generation doesn’t continue this way.”
