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Since more people have taken the time to air their disapproval (7000+ on one Facebook page alone, according to SFCitizen) of ING’s new rules for the Bay to Breakers race than have registered for the race itself, a rally at City Hall will take place on Thursday to add even more fuel to the fire. (God forbid SFist should tell you how to prioritize your battles, San Francisco. But, a rally to keep public pissing, nudity and drinking in a race? Really? Huh.) Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers will hold a press conference this Thursday at noon at City Hall. Not sure where Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi stands on this issue or if he plans of making an appearance at Thursday's rally. Word on the street is that he thinks ING went too far/overreacted to last year's problems.
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what's City Hall got to do, got to do with it?
Because ING didn't just come up with these changes on their own.
The Mayor is as much to blame as ING for screwing this up. The problem is that under Newsom the City is incapable of facilitating events. If you have less than 100 porta-potties a mile and 60K people, you are going to have problems with people needing to pee (alcohol or no alcohol). Like Halloween, like booze at street fairs, and now Bay to Breakers something that has worked fine for decades can't seem to work with Newsom in charge.
ING looks bad for getting suckered, but the adminstration looks worse for being incompetent.
Please, blaming Newsome is absurd. Its participant behavior that has been escalating more and more out of control for the past few years that is to blame.
Usually only about half of the runners actually register and pay the fee but and last year the weather was really nice so it brought out even more unregistered "runners." And its the unregistered floats that get abandoned and cause extra clean-up costs.
Last year, there was a huge PR push to get people to understand that if they participated in the event, they need to register and help pay for it - portapotties, clean-up & police aren't free. There was talk about trying to limit the event to just people with runner bibs, but with such a long, open route, that was deemed unfeasible.
The old B2B culture was great, but the seriously out of control fuck-you mob behavior that emerged last year was awful.
Since people can't seem voluntarily ratchet it back to just "fun & crazy" from "sick & dangerous", maybe these rules will help.
2008 B2B info:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/13/BAK610JUUL.DTL&hw=Bay+to+Breakers&sn=004&sc=227
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/21/BAJK10PM0S.DTL&hw=Bay+to+Breakers&sn=010&sc=179
The problem is that the people who act that way will continue to do so and won't follow the rules no matter how many changes you make. They'll just be hurting the responsible people who do want to follow the rules and are going to be considerate.
You want to fix these things? You don't do it by putting more needless rules in place, you do it by properly enforcing the basic rules you already have. From the way things went in the past it wasn't the lack of rules that caused the problems, it was, once again, lack of enforcement.
(God forbid SFist should tell you how to prioritize your battles, San Francisco. But, a rally to keep public pissing, nudity and drinking in a race? Really? Huh.)
God forbid SFist understand the soul of this City. (Nobody wants more pissing in the streets, by the by.)
Oh, by all means, share with us your pearls of wisdom as to what the soul of the entire city of San Francisco is!
I don't know the entire soul, and anyone who claims to is lying (or is Emperor Norton). But I think it's pretty clear that turning Bay to Breakers into just a footrace is not part of it.
excellent point.
this'll shake up those squares once and for all!
that's the soul of the city.
the corporations, man, they're evil. and the yuppies. man, they won't know what hit them this time.
"The old B2B culture was great, but the seriously out of control fuck-you mob behavior that emerged last year was awful."
Thank You! The problem is that the dialogue is overrun with people who just fucking got here and have no idea what they're talking about
Good. With all of these idiots gathered together in one place, it'll be easier to round them up, quickly and efficiently gas them, etc.
Go as a homeless person. You can push a trolley, drink, piss and the City won't do anything.
To make a statement, I propose that we do not attend the b2b, but instead congregate ELSEWHERE in SF.
This will accomplish 2 things
1) Reduce the numbers on the b2b route.
2) Increase visability elsewhere, ie not on the b2b route.
Perhaps the police will then realize that they can not be EVERYWHERE in SF, at the same time.
It would be in their best interest to have us at the 2010 b2b, instead of us running havoc elsewhere.
I know its a tough decision to not be at the b2b route, we might feel we're missing out. But look at the big picture (ie preserving b2b in the future) If we don't stand up and make a VERY loud statement / BOYCOTT this year, we may loose our battle.
Who's for meeting at Dolores Park ?
Who's for meeting at Chrissy Field ?
Who's for meeting at Glen Park ?(not a bay or breaker to be found, the ultimate b2b boycott statement)