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In yet another attempt to turn the city of San Francisco into a Knott's Berry Farm-tiered theme park, San Francisco officials, "say they are seriously considering cracking down on one of the city's most popular events in the growing 'flash mob' phenomenon," according to the Chronicle. That is to say, we might see the annual Valentine's Day pillow fight and last week's pie fight come to an end. Why? Because it's too expensive to clean up. Apparently, this most recent pillow fight cost the city "thousands of dollars."
Laughing Squid, who points out just what a "flash mob" actually is, gets mentioned in the article as a vehicle of said antics, to which we say, "Kudos, Mr. Beale."
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Shut down the flash mobs the same way they ended Critical Mass several years ago. Yeah, that'll show 'em.
at least Critical Mass doesn't ruin an area and create a mess. They're generally not going to trash something they're around, which in the eyes of a lot of people is nothing more than semi-organized vandalism.
The city has to pay workers to clean up a mess. This is a pretty reasonable thing to get upset over if you're the city because WE HAVE NO MONEY IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD.
I'm kinda thinking most people would rather keep the money going to people who we need (ie: fire/police) rather than people who have to come in and clean up gunk in front of Forever 21.
But yes, having irresponsible spontaneous fun definitely overrides anything anyone else can think about. Don't dare be that buzzkill that tells your friends to think about being respectful and cleaning up your own mess once the fun is over. That would be way too much to deal with.
This is all valid. However, the point is that any effort to shut these events down is a non-starter.
Recall the attempt years ago to shut down Critical Mass: the city realized that it was impossible. There really is no formal "organizer" or leader, so nobody is really responsible for the event. Even if some organizations post notices, they usually are not the originators of the idea. Rather, they are simply passing along the info. The person(s) who created the idea--if there is one--are virtually impossible to find.
So what can the city do? Randomly start arresting people? That's what they tried to do with Critical Mass and the city came off as morons. Moreover, it's a recipe for a riot, and pillow fights simply do not merit that.
So sure, it's a waste of money, and people should clean up afterwards, but the notion of shutting these events down simply won't happen.
The difference is that Critical Mass is a directly intending to break traffic laws and cause serious problems for transportation. Most flash mobs might get the ground a bit dirty.
I think, however, this might mean that people need to starting thinking more seriously about the events that they plan. Try to organize things in a way that they will be low-impact and, if this is not going to be possible, try to plan ahead and have provisions to clean it up.
the city is telling you to:
STFU & GBTW
Not much W in the city though.
Can't get to work, my commute is blocked by pie throwing hippie slackers.
I'm relocating to Lodi, then.
How do you expect anyone to get to W? Their commutes are clocks by pie throwing hippies, pillow whomping slackers, and the occasional but very disruptive murderous BART police officer. I'm relocating to Lodi!
Well, that's odd - is this new behavior? I hit "Submit", got a "Preview", with another "Submit" button under it, so I hit "back", rewrote my post, and got another "Preview" with a "Submit" button, and both posts got posted.
SFist isn't posting my comments correctly.
I'm relocating to Lodi!
yeah, comments are fucked. expect an indignant update from brock eventually.
i've got to be honest, that if the city is facing a deficit, and we are going to loose out on services, then fiscally i think we ought to take responsibility for our city: flash mobs should learn how to flash clean. I thought the point of a flash mob was to "disappear" afterwards. Well, if we are leaving behind mass chaos its not really disappearing as a part of the mob, the messy, ugly part, still remains. that money that is going to clean the city could be used for other things. and I know of many flash mob participators who also lobby and work for social services in this city--so I say to you: its your money, you decide!
that's a good point: these things aren't being very flash-y. that said, i think there may be an inapt conflation of flashmobbing and the pillow/pie fights. that is, was the pie fight planned as a flashmob?
the pie fight and pillow fights are NOT flash mobs. Annual events like Santarchy (Santa Con) also don't apply.
And that is an excellent point about disappearing. Leaving your trash for a blue collar city worker to clean up is just the typical entitled behavior of upper-middle class kids being "subversive".
I'm guessing the thousands of dollars comes from the six off-duty police officers on triple-time who are required to supervise the underpaid janitor with a spray-hose.
I wish the city would be as thorough with cleaning up urine and feces, as they are with shaving cream and feathers...
Oh whatever. The city is using their budget problems to justify just about any silly policy an overpaid bureaucrat can come up with using spurious stats.
The money isn't going to be "use for other things" it will be used for salaries for high paid aides to the mayor. And in total the amount "spent" on these is not much, and part of life in the city. If we're going to start charging, how about charging the hobos who spill their Night Train and pee on the street?
Its true, many policies are silly, but would you rather the city just leave the pie and feathers lying around to grow mold? That'll be great for tourism
how much do you think we spend on the person gavin uses to update his twitter?
true, but continuing with trashing our city isn't going to somehow make gavin any more likely to give up his twitterer (is that the pronoun?)
Thousands?
Of what? Pesos?
They must think we're stupid, otherwise they wouldn't talk to us this way.
they must think we're the kind of people who think pillow fights are the height of ironic wackiness.
Screw that. I pay obscene amounts of rent and taxes to live in a city that has pillow fights, Saint Stupid Day parades, Love Fest, and drunken naked people running through the streets. Oh, and Bay to Breakers.
You take all that away, and what do you have left? I don't know either, but it sounds like any other boring ass place but at triple the rent. Our forefathers came out West to escape the puritan judgment of the East. They dreamed of a land where one could drink and screw and no one would tell them they were wrong for it.
The rising tide of society pushed all of us westward and here we stand, our backs to the ocean. Once again we are being told to grow up and behave. Well, I aim to misbehave.
We must preserve precious city resources to subsidize people paying $600/month in rent and buying $30 dinners.
Maybe we need to figure out new ways of discouraging littering ... of course, if the economy keeps going to hell, that will be the least of our worries ...
Littering is littering ... instead of Mr. Policeman or Policewoman standing there and watching feathers flying out of pillows, bring a few video cameras and let the ticket writing for littering begin ... how much does a littering ticket go for in San Francisco in Justin Herman Plaza anyway? If no "organized" group will take responsibility and do the right thing (plan for the cleanup), then we need to write tickets for littering ... those of you disagree, can I start dropping off porta potty "fillings" in your home tomorrow since you don't mind the idea of people shitting in your bed and walking away scott free?
We just need to encourage "leave no trace" flash mobbing.
SERIOUSLY.
It's not hard to ask participants in any such events to clean up after themselves. Fun can still be had.
correct me if im wrong, but arent flash mobs where a bunch of people just freeze for a while for the same of a good time? i dont see how this could leave a mess.
i do recall seeing feathers and crap in the street after the pillow-fight, but that is not a flashmob in my mind.
Why not just request that people not bring feather pillows? Or be gentler with the feather pillows they bring? It seems the problem arises from freed feathers, not the pillow fight itself. Sure the flying feathers are cool for the first 30 seconds, but even as a pillow fight participant, I get tired of having to wear a bandanna the whole time--even if it is a totally awesome, fruity Macy's rainbow bandanna from Pride. I bet this is a solution the animal rights contingent can get behind too.
While it certainly sounds like the cost of this particular pillow fight outweighed any benefits to the city, San Francisco really should take into account the potential benefits of the popular draw such events have. Surely there must be a happy medium.
And let's cancel easter since there are thousands of eggs left unfound everywhere. And christmas cause of all those pesky pine needles.
Aren't these events the city cleans up after attended by residents of the city? Seems like the city is doing its job cleaning up after us. Sorry for making you do your job.
Attention fellow residents of SF - the City's job is to clean up after us. Please feel free to simply dump your trash in the street. That is all.
"Please feel free to simply dump your trash in the street."
No worries-- people who don't read SFist appear to have already gotten the memo!
Most events that are attended by residents of the city are required to get permits, have liability insurance and leave cleaning deposits. Grow up. These "spontaneous" events can hardly be defined as regular wear and tear and fall well outside the job description of the city workers assigned to clean our sidewalks & streets and extra police and DPT needed to monitor these events.
At last year's zombie mob there was one cop who followed us for most of the route and maybe a small amount of fake blood left on the street that was likely gone with the morning fog. Not a whole lot of impact really.
How did I miss the pie fight? And more importantly, why isn't it held this coming Saturday (3.14 - Pi Day)?
Is there are math day for every week of the year? Last week it was square root day (3.3.9). Oh, and flashmobs shouldn't have to clean up after themselves for the same reason that angry mobs of pitchfork waving witch burners didn't have to clean all the witch mess back in the day. Flashmobs are making the ground fertile for our crops.
First the War on Terror, now the War on Lameness. "What? -You're going to a Fash Mob? Well, you must be the MOST INTERESTING PERSON IN THE WORLD!"
I'm not in favor of police crack-downs, but I do long for the inevitable day when people wake up and realize how weak flash mobs are. Maybe the participants should save some of that "wackiness" for Burning Man, AKA San Francisco's Douche-Free Weekend.
Why can't there be some organizers for these events that also organize a cleanup, to take responsibility for themselves? It's a pretty easy thing to do. Or has this country completely lost all sense of personal responsibility?
Sorry about that. I'm just, you know, being logical. And stuff.