SF: Busing Homeless Across The Bay

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Golden Showers Rain On Castro

You don’t need to be a weatherman to which way the wind blows and Citizens for Halloween are forecasting golden showers, predicting a thunder clash of party revelers and cops with no port-a-potties in sight.

Co-founder and SF Party Party blogger, Ted Strawser, reached out to Castro resident and Port-a-potty guy, Michael Staley, in an effort to dam the urine river before it starts, offering outhouses to neighborhood homeowners.

But, on Tuesday, the Department of Public Works informed him that it would violate city bylaws to issue him a port-a-john.

Instead, The City hopes to stem the tide with a combination of lame PSA Announcements, Aggressive Law Enforcement, and Intimidating Bar Owners.

The No Halloween In the Castro Ads urge partiers to stay home or head somewhere other than the Castro:

“Because this year, the Castro is not where it’s happening”

The City’s Law Enforcement Plan includes:

• Deputy Chief David Shinn says Capt. John Goldberg will head the Mission Station, will receive reports every half hour from command stations throughout the city to deploy police as needed. He Shinn described a “aggressive enforcement” policy for drunkenness, public urination and other likely offenses.

• Shinn and at least half a dozen other officials made pains to note that Muni buses and drivers will be available to ferry “platoons” of cops around town like troop transports.

• Unlike the past, the streets will only be barricaded on an as-needed basis. Also, less of the Castro will be off-limits for parking than in the past.

• Large numbers of Meter Maids and Tow Trucks will be on-scene, to expedite the towing of cars in the no-parking zones, driveways or sidewalks.

• California Highway Patrol officers will be manning DUI checkpoints.

Joe Alioto Veronese, a civil rights attorney, also pointed out that by canceling the official Halloween event and opting not to barricade streets, the city had no legal right to subject random citizens to a weapons check as it did last year.

A number of Castro denizens went on to angrily accuse Supervisor Bevan Dufty, the mayor’s office and the police of attempting to intimidate local businesses into closing on Halloween – as the Weekly noted in its latest print edition.

European in the Castro?

I guess Gavin’s PSA’s don’t include subtitles - lol. Seriously, get your nose plugs out. No rain ’til Wednesday - peewww-eeee!

Complete Article: 100,000 People Are Coming: Where Will They Urinate? by Joe Eskenazi, SF Weekly

Breakin News: Castro Business Owners Forced to Board Up by Traci Grant, NBC11

Related Post: Smashing Pumpkins with Gavin Newsom

Gavin Newsom Smashing Pumpkins

The Great Pumpkin will skip San Francisco this year.

Gavin Newsom has declared there will be no official Halloween celebration anywhere in San Francisco in October - not in the Castro neighborhood, the traditional home of the event, and not at a parking lot near AT&T Park, which had been considered as an alternate site.

City officials are still trying to prevent any festivities in the Castro. On Wednesday, Supervisor Bevan Dufty sent a letter to 110 owners of bars, restaurants and stores in the Castro, asking them to close shop on Halloween night to discourage partygoers.

The Halloween event was marred by violence last year after the shooting near the main stage on Market Street. Another person was injured as the crowd fled the area. Dufty and other city leaders had already been concerned about violence at the event, including the potential for attacks on members of the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population.

Halloween traditionally has been a major community event - sometimes referred to as the "Gay Christmas" - but Dufty said that era has passed.

"It's not a holiday in the Castro. It's a night in which the neighborhood is overrun by people who come to gawk, not celebrate, and unfortunately it turns into gang night out in the Castro."

To quell the Castro event, which draws several hundred thousand people, no roads will be closed, no barriers will be erected and no portable bathrooms will be set up, Dufty said. Police will be out in numbers akin to last Halloween, but they will be patrolling with "zero tolerance" for anyone breaking the law, he said.

Dufty has commitments from five businesses in the Castro to close on Halloween night, and he will try to persuade more to do so at a community meeting in the neighborhood next week.

San Francisco Chronicle : No Castro Halloween This Year, And No Official S.F. Alternative by Wyatt Buchanan