from www.sfgate.com – You never know who is going to stand up and speak during public comment at meetings at City Hall. This week’s surprise came during the hearing on the Entertainment Commission at the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee.

Among the speakers was Entertainment Commissioner Terrance Alan,[pictured] who owns the building in the Tenderloin where the notorious Pink Diamonds strip club is housed. With all the problems at the club, including gunfire, violence, and a shooting death, Alan has become the symbol for the ”fox in the henhouse” criticism of the Commission. How can he be expected to regulate clubs when his building houses one of the worst offenders?

Worse, Alan has generally declined or ignored interview requests from the media, making it look as if he was ducking responsibility.

But Monday afternoon, he took the microphone to issue a mea culpa. For 12 years he ran a successful all-night, gay adult entertainment business. The problem, he said, was caused when he decided to rent to a new tenant.

”I made a poor choice (Pink Diamonds) in my second choice,” he said, ”and to that poor choice I owe this board and my community an apology.”

In fact, he said, this week he will be joining with the city attorney to bring a motion to evict.

Good for him. It would, however, carry a little more clout if City Attorney Dennis Herrera hadn’t already announced a motion to shut down the club back on Sept. 30 — at which time Alan was unavailable for comment.

However, given the choice of saying nothing or standing up — belatedly or not — Alan gets credit for speaking up and apologizing. We just wish he’d done it sooner.

When Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said during that same committee meeting that he believes ”the commission needs more transparency,” that might be what he was talking about.