In what could be a high-octane shot for movie theaters across SF, District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill hopes to relax the rules around giving liquor licenses to movie theaters, so that more theaters can serve beer and wine.

It seems that San Francisco City Hall’s solution to our post-COVID economic doldrums is to just add alcohol to everything. From boozy night markets and entertainment zones to to-go cocktails and lots of new liquor licenses, we seem to have a pretty one-dimensional strategy to get people out to venues and events. And that’s to make it easier for people to buy alcohol there. Though it seems to be working?  

The latest proposal on the booze bandwagon came at Tuesday afternoon’s SF Board of Supervisors meeting, when District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill proposed new rules that would make it much easier for movie theaters to start selling beer and wine at their concessions counters.

“Movie theaters have been threatened by shifting streaming habits, the pandemic, and more,” Sherrill said Tuesday when introducing his legislation. “The theaters who’ve been hit hardest by these tough economic conditions are the small, single-screen historic theaters."

“Serving beer and wine at theaters is good for the bottom line, it’s good for their long-term health and sustainability as businesses,” Sherrill added.

The way things are now, the SF Planning code requires a mandatory “revenue test” for serving alcohol, a revenue test that sees movie theaters the exact same way it sees traditional restaurants. And that revenue test demands that a venue pull a minimum of its 51% of gross sales receipts from the sales of food prepared on site. Sherrill says that criteria is unrealistic for movie theaters.

“Regardless how much we charge for extra butter, no amount of popcorn is going to make 51% of their revenue,” he said Tuesday.

So his new proposal would amend the definition of a movie theater to allow beer and wine sales in a way that the 51% rule would no longer apply.

The Chronicle clearly had word that this proposal coming before Sherrill spoke on Tuesday. And very interestingly, that paper reports that Sherrill’s proposal "was authored as a result of the current bid by billionaire tech investor Neil Mehta to renovate and reopen the Clay Theater." So the whole proposal is clearly a sop to the new tycoon developer who’s buying up a bunch of the Upper Fillmore’s buildings.

That said, Sherrill’s proposal would apply to any movie theater in town, even those outside his District 2. Though the legislation also contains specific exemptions for the Clay Theater (which has been shuttered since before the pandemic), allowing alcohol sales during panel discussions and live performances, something currently not allowed by neighborhood law. That would make the Clay once again an attractive venue for film festivals, who program plenty of panel discussions.

As for the Clay Theatre itself, which we would all love to see open again, the Chronicle had an update in September saying the rebooted theater would feature “feature 4K projection, 35 millimeter film, live events and over 500 screenings a year.” That report adds the Clay would be reborn as a “200-seat, single-screen cinema,” with an expanded concessions area and a bookstore section added on too.

We previously reported that Mehta wants the theater to be an art-house cinema showing new and old movies with an attached restaurant/lounge, along the lines of downtown New York indie cinema Metrograph.

There are a few other exemptions the Clay Theatre would receive in Sherrill’s proposal that would eliminate the amount of red tape and the number of conditional use permits the theater would require to enact Mehta’s plans. So yes, this legislation likely came at the direct behest of billionaire developer Neil Mehta, with his not always completely transparent plans for his real estate splurge in the Upper Fillmore neighborhood.

But any San Franciscan would be thrilled to see the Clay Theatre back open and operating as a movie theater, as it once was since way back in 1913. And quite a few of us would also be thrilled to not only see films there again, but also add a beers or glasses of wine to that experience.

Related: Lurie Gets His 20 New Liquor Licenses for Union Square, After Newsom Signs Bill Allowing These [SFist]

Image: Misato S via Yelp

The to-go cocktails will be flowing on a few Cole Valley sidewalks during street-closure events, as the SF Board of Supervisors just made that neighborhood SF’s newest “entertainment zone” where establishments can sell to-go drinks during fairs and night markets.

Fans of San Francisco’s outdoor parties that allow open containers of alcohol know that the city has started up these “entertainment zone” events where bars and restaurants are allowed to sell to-go alcohol to the partiers during outdoor events where street closures are in effect.  The first of these was on the Financial District’s Front Street, and gave those to-go cocktail sales privileges to Schroeder’s, Harrington’s Bar & Grill, and the Royal Exchange. That was followed by adding Chase Center and a few other downtown alleys to the entertainment zone mix.

In December, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman proposed making Cole Valley the next entertainment zone, for events like the Cole Valley Street Fair and Cole Valley Night Market. And on Tuesday, the SF Board of Supervisors unanimously approved giving the to-go cocktail sales designations to stretches of two streets in Cole Valley, so bars on those streets can sell to-go booze during designated night markets and fairs.

“The businesses are struggling,” Cole Valley Tavern and Bacon Bacon owner Jim Angelus said at a Monday committee meeting before the board’s vote. “We still have spaces for rent that are still sitting there. But giving the neighborhood and these blocks an extra boost would really have a significant impact.”

These to-go alcohol sales can only happen during events when street closures are in effect.

The map above shows which parts of Cole Valley have received this entertainment zone designation. It’s a Google map, and you can see that Zazie, Ino Vino, and Beit Rima fall in the zone. But the map doesn't display some other businesses that will also have this option, like Finnegan’s Wake, Bambino’s, and Cole Valley Tavern.

In a new twist that just took effect on January 1, these events no longer need approval from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC). State Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 969 just took effect on the first of the year, and gave local government full control of the entertainment zone events. That change will also apply to the Front Street and Chase Center entertainment zones.

But remember, folks, your open container cannot be taken outside of the entertainment zone boundaries, and cannot be brought inside of a business on these streets. So definitely nobody ever do that!

Related: SF’s Next Boozy ‘Entertainment Zone’ Could Be Coming to Cole Valley [SFist]

Image: Downtown SF Partnership

The recent tick-up of more alcohol-permitted “entertainment zone” parties may turn into a flood of more such parties, as the SF supervisors just approved legislation to create a whole lot more of these parties downtown, and in SoMa and Union Square.  

Downtown San Francisco foot traffic remains relatively moribund compared to pre-pandemic levels, prompting Mayor Breed and SF City Hall to tinker with revitilization strategies like the Vacant to Vibrant pop-ups, night markets, and downtown “entertainment zones” where restaurants and bars can sell to-go alcohol to the revelers in the street where these events are happening. The first of those “entertainment zone” parties was last Friday’s Oktoberfest party on Front Street in front of Schroeder’s, Harrington’s Bar & Grill, and the Royal Exchange.

In late July, Supervisor Aaron Peskin proposed a streamlined process to create a whole lot more “entertainment zones” downtown, which just happens to be largely his district. Under Peskin’s proposal, neighborhoods’ community benefits districts (CBDs) would be able to get large-scale permits that they could use over and over, rather than getting individual permits for each event.

And on Tuesday, the SF Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Peskin’s expanded entertainment zone legislation.

Consider that the Downtown First Thursdays parties now happen once a month, or 12 times a year. Under Peskin’s just-passed legislation, CBDs would throw no fewer than 20 parties a year, and could even throw 100 or more of them.  

“Each CBD must commit to holding a minimum of twenty events annually at one or more specified locations within their CBD boundaries,” the legislation says. “The ordinance designates each Activation Location as an ‘Entertainment Zone,’ thus allowing brick-and-mortar bars and restaurants within the Entertainment Zone to sell alcohol for patrons to consume outdoors at the Downtown Activation event.”

Above we see the very complicated process for throwing one of these outdoor alcohol events as it exists now. Under this new legislation, the CBD would get a reusable permit that alcohol-serving businesses could just activate over and over.

This legislation does not apply to the entire city. Front Street has already been authorized, as we saw at the Oktoberfest party. But new micro-areas new approved as new entertainment zones include parts downtown (Balance Street at Gold Street, and the Landing at Leidesdorff), Yerba Buena (Annie Plaza, Jessie Street, and Minna Street), Union Square (Claude Lane, Maiden Lane, Harlan Place), and the East Cut (Natoma Street and Second Street).

Related: Yet More Outdoor Downtown ‘Entertainment Zone’ Parties Could Be Coming Under New Legislation From Aaron Peskin [SFist]

Image: @mcampbellSD via Twitter

The streets will be closed to cars and the beer steins flowing at Oktoberfest on Front, as the Oktoberfest block part will be California’s first alcohol-drenched “entertainment zone” party under new legislation.

San Francisco’s response to downtown SF still being quite moribund compared to pre-pandemic times has been to ramp up the number of outdoor street parties with alcohol in that neighborhood. Our state Senator Scott Wiener diplomatically referred to these outdoor booze party permits as “Refreshment Areas" in his bill that legalized these parties on the state level, and Mayor London Breed’s local legislation allowing bars to sell to-go alcohol at street parties calls them “Entertainment Zones.”    

And now we have what Breed’s office is calling “the first-ever Entertainment Zone event in California history.” It’s Oktoberfest on Front, and will close car traffic on Front Street on Friday, September 20, allowing the bars Schroeder’s, Harrington’s Bar & Grill, and Royal Exchange to sell to-go alcohol to the street revelers.

The daytime/nighttime Oktoberfest on Front will also have a live music stage featuring the bands AlpineSound, Ladyhosen, and Pop Rocks. KRON4 notes there will also be the usual Oktoberfest beer hall games like axe throwing, a "pretzel" toss, a stein holding contest, and a beer chugging contest.

Though the beer for the beer chugging contest will be non-alcoholic beer, as apparently the event would prefer to minimize the amount of vomiting onsite.

“We are focused on transforming Downtown into a vibrant 24/7 destination that offers more economic opportunities for our bars and restaurants to excite residents and draw visitors from across the City and beyond,” Mayor Breed said in a Thursday announcement. “We are thrilled to see the expansion of this beloved San Francisco tradition and to be the first city in the state to take advantage of the new Entertainment Zone legislation, which paves the way for a nightlife renaissance in San Francisco’s Downtown and neighborhoods citywide. I want to thank Senator Wiener, Downtown SF Partnership, Schroeder’s, Harrington’s Bar & Grill, and Royal Exchange for making this event possible.”  

You may point out that Schroeder’s has already had outdoor Oktoberfest parties in years past, and this is true. But the coming Oktoberfest on Front will take up the entire block of Front Street between California and Sacramento streets, and with three bars selling to-go alcohol.

Oktoberfest on Front will be Friday, September 20, from 2-10 pm. Admission is free, though the drinks will cost money, and Schroeder's “will be a full Hofbrau, serving liter beers,” according to organizers at the Downtown SF Partnership.

But in an unfortunate bit of timing, this event does completely overlap with the free Portugal.The Man concert at Civic Center Plaza, which is also that same day at 7 pm.

Related: Yet More Outdoor Downtown ‘Entertainment Zone’ Parties Could Be Coming Under New Legislation From Aaron Peskin [SFist

Image: Downtown SF Partnership

SFist’s Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Map is back and ready for this Sunday’s annual running of the naked and drunk yahoos, plus we’ve got tips on how to conceal your booze, and where to expect those pesky law enforcement checkpoints.

This Sunday’s Bay to Breakers race brings back what may be San Francisco’s drunkest annual event, and is certainly SF’s drunkest 8 am Sunday morning event. The loony footrace where most people aren’t really racing is also known as “Straight Pride” for its intoxicated, mostly heterosexual and sometimes boorish participants. To help you be intoxicated but not boorish, we’ve got some tips on how to avoid getting your booze confiscated, where to buy more alcohol when you’re in the outer reaches of Golden Gate Park, and other Bay to Breakers hooligan decorum.

There will be early BART trains running to get you to the 8 am Starting Line at Howard and Main streets, where the tortillas will be flying. But that’s just the beginning of your 12 kilometers of tipsy debauchery.

Be aware that race organizers have figured out how to nominally deter the partying. They now confiscate people’s visible open containers, crack down on wheeled contraptions, and fence off certain parks or areas where revelers tend to congregate (or publicly urinate), like Alamo Square Park and the Panhandle. Here’s how to avoid that trouble, and also how to avoid the trouble of running out of alcohol.

THE BAY TO BREAKERS LIQUOR STORE MAP

An SFist tradition since 2008, when Matier & Ross complained about it in the Chronicle, our Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Map is back and fully updated for 2024. There are plenty of liquor stores right on the race course for the first half of the race, but once you pass Divisadero Street’s New Star-Ell Liquor, you will not see any more stores selling alcohol. Once you’re on Fell Street and in Golden Gate Park, the purple “beer mug” icons show where you can buy more alcohol or snacks to refresh your stock.

Also be aware that they now place fences on both sides of Fell Street, to keep you out of the Panhandle in the morning, and to prevent you from trashing people’s houses on the north side of Fell Street. So if you're buying alcohol in NoPa (and the Fulton Street Lucky Supermarket has great deals), you will have to head up Masonic Avenue or Shrader Street, where there are breaks in the fence.

There will likely be enterprising youngsters trying to sell you hot dogs and such on the other side of those Fell Street gates. And the gates are generally removed from the Panhandle by noon Sunday, where a very lovely afterparty generally comes together in that park.  

As usual in recent years, the Divisadero Bi-Rite will be closed during Bay to Breakers hours on Sunday morning. This is too bad, because that store used to sell booze right out of their ice cream counter window some ten years ago.

WILL THE POLICE BUST ME FOR DRINKING?

They might, but it's more likely they’ll just make you dump your booze. Your backpacks or bags will probably be checked at the gates near Howard and Main streets, so make sure your alcohol is in some manner of unmarked container. Also, there are usually private security guards stationed near the top of Hayes Hill at Alamo Square Park, and they will confiscate alcohol. As we reported in 2022, one security guard “even pulled a couple aside pushing a stroller with a live child in it, in order to grab the bottle of Champagne they had tucked underneath the kid. The nerve!”

Another guy who had duct-taped forties to his hands also was forced to empty those.

At the expense of pointing out the obvious, you should simply conceal your alcohol so police and security cannot tell that you have it.  

WHERE ARE THE GATES, AND WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO KEEP YOU OUT OF?

We mentioned there will be gates on both sides of Fell Street, though the Panhandle gates are generally removed by noon Sunday. The city generally also gates off Alamo Square Park, which many “runners” used to just use as a giant open-air toilet. There are now porta-potties usually placed there for the event, and hilariously, signs reminding you “No Public Urination.”

SHOULD I REGISTER FOR BAY TO BREAKERS?

If you can afford it, yes, because the two lost years of the pandemic have been financially tough on the race and the marathon industry generally. Registration is now $95 per person, and you would have to pick up your bib at the Sports Basement in the Presidio or Berkeley. You also get a very nice shirt (last year’s is seen above), a medal at the finish line, and one complimentary beer at a beer garden near the finish line. Though that beer usually runs out well before noon.

CAN I JUST CRASH AND NOT PAY FOR REGISTRATION?

You can! Gavin Newsom did it back in 2010, before he had presidential aspirations to worry about.

So do take this advice into account, and try to be a good citizen, regardless of the event's slapstick irreverence. But as a reminder, do not litter, do not pee in public, do not taunt the bison in Golden Gate Park, and do realize that LSD might not be the best drug of choice for this event.

Some welcome news: Sunday morning is expected to be sunny and clear, with temperatures of nearly 60 degrees.

Related: Photos: Bay to Breakers Returns In Its Full Drunk-As-Hell-at-8 a.m. Glory [SFist]

Images: Joe Kukura, SFist

There’s a stumbling stone for alcohol service at the Shared Spaces sidewalk seating that’s supposed to kick in Monday ⁠— not one establishment has yet been granted a state permit to serve booze.

Anyone who’s ventured out of the house these last two weeks has probably seen some al fresca outdoor dining on SF sidewalks, and perhaps a few bars offering “to go” alcohol (often with the patrons not necessarily “to go”-ing anywhere). Outdoor table service resumed June 12, a couple days before it was originally scheduled to, and last week the Board of Supervisors approved a variance that would sanction so-called Shared Spaces to allow sidewalk and street seating, and even alcohol service there with the required permit. That’s all supposed to kick in this coming Monday, June 29, but Mission Local noticed a problem — the city of San Francisco had not yet applied for the state variance required from Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) to allow outdoor booze service.

“We can’t get our ABC clearance. We can’t get our temporary permit,” Scoma’s owner Mariann Costello told Mission Local. “We’re trying to figure out who dropped the ball.”

Now just five days from the supposed reopening date, SF Weekly reports that those temporary alcohol permits still have not arrived. The paper explains that establishments already permitted for patio alcohol service are totally in the clear, but the Shared Spaces newbies are still awaiting this last-minute approval. Further, San Francisco had only “submitted a letter of intent to apply” for the variance last Friday. Granted, a cursory walk up some bar-heavy streets on a Friday or Saturday happy hour will show you that some watering holes are saying the hell with it, and serving anyway.

Eater SF dives in and explains that restaurants and bars both have to apply for the Shared Spaces permit, and if they want alcohol in the mix, a state permit from the ABC called a Temporary Catering Authorization (TCA) that has more demanding criteria like “a diagram of the proposed outdoor dining area, and proof that the outdoor drinking spot has the OK of local law enforcement.” The ABC permits are in effect until the end of the state of emergency orders, the local Shared Spaces permits are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2020.

Mayor Breed’s upcoming order of reopenings covers many types of businesses, accelerated because we have, for now, kept our infection rate under pretty good control. But there is obviously more red tape for businesses that serve alcohol. And while establishments are surely sweating whether they’ll be able to serve booze in just five days, it’s totally normal for state permits to be granted at the eleventh hour (or at least, it was before COVID-19). Back when recreational marijuana became legal in January 2018, many dispensaries did not get their state recreational permits until literally the night before they were set to sell adult-use weed.

All of this talk of bureaucratic permitting misses the real issue here, which is whether this is even safe to do in the first place. Just yesterday, we saw Mill Valley’s Buckeye Roadhouse close again after reopening because two staff had tested positive. Certainly that means exposure for anyone who’d eaten there. There is no guarantee of safety with the accelerated reopenings, even if the state and city give their blessing. So if restaurants and bars get their permits to start serving stiff ones on Monday, they may end up in a circumstance where they regret doing so.

Related: Orphan Andy's In Castro Gets Plastic Partitions Between Booths, Shower Curtains [SFist]

Image: Tina O. via Yelp

Wine.com reports that orders are up 400 percent during stay-at-home orders, as bottoms up is the top activity in these shut in times.

You’d be forgiven for blacking out around sundown and not having even noticed yet that liquor stores across San Francisco are being forced to close at 8 p.m. every night now, according to KRON 4. Mayor Breed issued that order Friday, another of the expanded shelter in place orders now in effect until at least May 1. Any cursory scrolling of social media you’ve done in the last two weeks — and yes, it has only been 14 days since this started — will show you that drinking alcohol has become a preferred pastime in the age of COVID-19. We now have the data to back this “No sh*t, Sherlock” observation; on the heels of Eater National's report that alcohol sales are skyrocketing (“Three-liter boxed wine is up 53 percent”), the Chronicle follows up with a report that Wine.com is seeing a 400 percent increase in spirits sales, from which Eater highlights the conclusion that Bay Area residents are drinking 42 percent more alcohol whilst stuck home.

Yet the 42 percent figure may be a little skewed. That very specific information comes from a smartphone breathalyzer device called BACtrack, who’ve analyzed the blood alcohol content of their users who’ve employed the contraption in six Bay Area counties during shelter in place. In other words, these are people who already had personal breathalyzers prior to the lockdown orders. It’s my experience that the small number of people who own personal alcohol breathalyzers have these for, how do I put this diplomatically… a very specific reason. It’s fair to wonder if people who own breathalyzers may have different consumption patterns than the general public.

Of course, it certainly helps our drinking patterns that so many SF bars are now delivering and serving to-go alcohol, since the state ABC recently blessed these spirit sales. While this has been available on the big delivery apps for awhile, it’s certainly preferable to support your favorite local bar instead of the ethically challenged app platforms.

Also, we have anecdotal reports that K&L Wine Merchant, the local wine and spirits retailer, saw its website crash over the weekend under the weight of some major ordering activity. K&L, it should be noted, is offering local deliveryd in its own vans, as well as delivery all over the Bay Area and beyond via Common Courier.

But while this is all fun and drinking games for many of us, Buzzfeed reports that the recovery community faces a huge challenge with in-person meetings cancelled, and massive server overloads making the online meetings choppy and unreliable. It’s bad enough that these people have to look through all of our boozebag social media posts, many of which I have thoughtlessly embedded in this article. But Business Insider brings us the absolutely heartbreaking story that online trolls are crashing recovery meetings held on the platform Zoom, and taunting and humiliating the people in recovery.

It’s important to remember that everyone is coping with this shelter in place thing differently, so even indulging in vices (other than online trolling!) might still be the most safe and sane way to keep composure through this unprecedented burden life has dealt us. If you hit the bottle to keep yourself content staying in and not flouting orders by congregating in public, you are doing the right thing and fighting the spread of the virus! So here’s to drowning our sorrows/boredom in the interest of public health, as SFist can in fact confirm that it is 5:00 p.m. somewhere.

Related: 11 Best Alcohol Delivery Services In SF [SFist]

Image: Barfly, Cannon Film Distributors

The countdown is on to WhiskyFest San Francisco! If you're going, use the #wfsfo on all you social media posts! https://t.co/uyxlgHAacB pic.twitter.com/7P9N40Layo

— WhiskyFest (@WhiskyFest) September 28, 2017

Have you developed a taste for the brown liquors? Then you might want to grab a last-minute ticket to WhiskyFest, the annual bacchanal thrown by Whisky Advocate magazine where distillers from around the country (and the globe) bring their bourbons, ryes, scotches and more for the whiskey-loving masses to sample. The pours are small because, obviously, you want to taste as many things as you can before your palate is completely blown or you're completely hammered, whichever comes first. But it's always a party after the first half hour or so when everyone's tasted a bunch of booze and starts getting chatty.

Over 400 whiskeys and other spirits will be poured, and you can see the full list here.

There's food, too, catered by the Marriott — the event takes place in one of their subterranean ballrooms — so you can give all that whiskey a base upon which to sit.

And you can count on lines for the most sought-after cult bourbons, scotches, and Japanese whiskeys, like super-aged bottles of Pappy Van Winkle — the frenzy around which inspired a whole episode of the podcast Criminal — or rare bottles of Hibiki or Whistle Pig.

Typically there are also a few high-end rums and Cognacs for sampling as well, and starting at 7 PM there are a series of seminars you can attend typically centered around one type of spirit, like a tasting of varieties of Japanese whiskey.

VIP tickets, which get you in an hour early (some of the rarest stuff goes fast), are sold out. But if you're looking for something to do this evening, you can find general admission tickets here (they're $275 apiece).

The fun starts at 6:30 p.m. tonight (Friday, October 6) at the Marriott Marquis.

Late-night boozebags will be raising a toast to State Sen. Scott Wiener this week, as his proposal to move last call for alcohol to as late as 4 a.m. has successfully passed the California Senate Appropriations Committee. The Let Our Communities Adjust Late Night Act, acronymized as LOCAL, was approved by the Senate Public Safety Committee in late March and according to a release from Wiener’s office will now be voted on by the full State Senate this week “with the deadline for passage being June 2."

The possibility of being able to serve drinks until 4 a.m. has been pushed for by many in San Francisco's nightlife community for years — believing, probably rightly, that the nightlife scene suffers because of it, especially in the age of Uber and Lyft when most people aren't risking DUIs to get themselves home after a night at the clubs.

The passage of this proposal through committee does not move last call to 4 a.m., and even passage of the bill would not guarantee late-night alcohol service. Even if the full state senate, the full assembly, and Governor Brown approve this bill — and none of them have yet — the bill would merely give California municipalities (or counties, in unincorporated areas) the option of moving back the alcohol cut-off at bars and stores until as late as 4 a.m.

“The state of California has a one-size-fits-all approach,” Sen. Wiener told SF Weekly shortly after introducing the bill in February. “Every single community, every single venue in California must stop serving liquor at 2 a.m., from the Oregon border to the Mexican border. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Communities can decide for themselves what makes sense in terms of alcohol service hours,” he added. “For some communities, it makes sense to stick with 2 a.m. For other communities, it may make sense to extend it to 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., or a few venues, or in a certain part of the city.”

The bill faces opposition from a handful of law enforcement groups, and an alcohol industry watchdog group called Alcohol Justice who helped defeat a similar proposal in 2013. “This is a bad idea because nothing good happens after 2 a.m. at bars and restaurants where alcohol is served,” Alcohol Justice executive director Bruce Lee Livingston told the Weekly.

That 2013 defeat of essentially this exact same bill (the previous version was authored by then-State Senator Mark Leno) was driven by DUI concerns, as opponents worried the geographically different last call times would foster more late-night drunk driving. We’ll see whether that concern sobers the legislature again this time, as the state Senate votes on the measure between now and Friday. If passed, it would go before the Assembly for approval, and then to Governor Brown for consideration.

Related: Best Post-2 A.M. Eats In San Francisco

The annual Straight Pride celebration known as Bay to Breakers goes down Sunday morning at 8 a.m., and as has been the custom for a number of years, SFist comes through with our proprietary Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Map to help you find corner stores and markets to replenish your ever-disappearing stock of beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes, and sundries on the race course. Sure, it is plain as day that many liquor stores are located right along the first half of the course on Howard and Hayes Streets — but once you turn on Fell Street and head into the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park, you will not encounter any more alcohol-selling establishments for the remainder of your Bay to Breakers trek. That’s where’s the map below comes in, navigating you from the parks to the closest corner stores.

The map can be accessed easily on your smartphone with the bit.ly link bit.ly/b2bbooze or by expanding on the map above. (An Android device will load it as a Google Map automatically, an iOS mobile device will require having the Google Maps app). The red stars are liquor stores, “little blue dot” will appear in Google Maps to show you where you are in relation to the nearest liquor store when stuck in the deep, remote regions of Golden Gate Park, and you can click on the Legend button for the specific names and addresses of the liquor stores.

There are some new developments in this year’s Bay to Breakers liquor store landscape. As you can see above, the Bi-Rite Divisadero right on the race course will not be open to serve the drunken fools running Bay to Breakers. Oh, they had their fun back in 2013, replacing shelves of food with more and more booze, but this year they won’t open til 1 p.m. because of “obstructed sidewalks”. (Which makes no sense! There will be steel barriers separating the street from the sidewalk! The barriers are there specifically so businesses can remain open!)

Image: DoNotLick via Flickr

Do be aware, though, that police presence at Hayes Hill makes this area the most dangerous spot for carrying an open container of alcohol, and of course its neighbor Alamo Square Park remains closed and gated off until next week.

We do encourage runners to please employ some manners. Do use the porta-potties instead of peeing in the parks and streets — if you urinate in public, Stanley Roberts will put you on television. And you should register if you haven’t already, with in-person registration available Friday and Saturday at the Bay to Breakers Expo (Pier 35, 1453 Embarcadero). If you actually manage to finish the race, Muni is adding extra 5X, 5R and NX routes to get your drunken ass back to more recognizable parts of town, though I will advocate for simply turning right around and walking on foot reverse-ways on the exact same race course, and watching the people drunker and slower than you try to inch toward the finish line. There are always people drunker and slower than you.

Related: How to Do Bay to Breakers

When the world turns sour, the residents of booze-soaked San Francisco have been known to find solace in drink. However, just like everything else in this town, that particular comfort will cost you. The one thing that our city's wonderful liquor stores, local breweries, and amazing bars all have in common is that they aren't cheap. And that, dear reader, is where the new cocktail-friendly app Hooch comes in.

The premise is simple: Pay $9.99 a month and get 30 drinks at neighborhood bars all over the city. Assuming you're not a horrible person and you tip your bartender, that works out to roughly $40 for thirty cocktails. Now, there are some stipulations — it's one drink per day, for example — but even with that important caveat it's still a great deal for the enthusiastic spirits consumer.

The drinks become available everyday starting at 5:00 a.m., meaning this even works for both the brunching set and the wraparound party crew. And you get to choose a bar near you, more or less. The Chronicle reports that after opening the app customers are shown participating bars near their location. So no needing to trek all the way to Fisherman's Wharf to get some sugary abomination, in other words.

This is not the first alcohol app to come to town, however previous contenders have mostly focused on delivery.

Hooch was launched in 2014 and is based in New York. According to Crunchbase the company has secured $2.75 million in funding, with some of that money comes from Olympic gold medalist Shaun Roger White and Def Jam's Russell Simmons.

Available in ten cities ranging from Hong Kong to Austin, Hooch launched yesterday in San Francisco. That means it's just in time for whatever holiday stress you may need to process at the neighboring watering hole following a turkey dinner with any and all Trump-supporting relatives. Drink up.

Related: Another Booze-Delivery App Launches In S.F.

[Update: This post has been updated with comment from Safeway communications and government relations.]

Your booze runs may experience double toil and trouble at certain San Francisco Safeway stores this Halloween weekend, as many Safeway locations have recently adopted the draconian measure of locking all liquor behind glass cabinets, with one store even keeping the whole wine stock under lock and key, too.

All across town, Safeway liquor and wine enthusiasts must now ring a bell for service, wait for a sales associate to show up with the key, have that associate tell you which checkout line to stand in rather than choosing the shortest line for yourself, and then have your checkout wait time punctuated with the constant ding-dong of more alcohol aisle service requests. Why have many Safeway stores started locking up more of their wine and spirits? And which Safeway locations still shelve booze unlocked, “the good old way” that is so much less of a pain in the ass?

"Safeway employs a number of security measures at our stores to deter shoplifting," Safeway senior communications and government relations manager Wendy Gutshall told SFist. "Like many other retailers, locked cabinets is one method we use. For proprietary reasons, we cannot provide step-by-step detail of how these decisions are made. We can say locked cabinets are used throughout our stores in Northern California."

It was easy enough to plot out which Safeways lock up the liquor, which also lock up the wine, and which currently lock neither. It also didn’t take long to find indications that Safeway has indeed suffered a shoplifting spike, and that alcohol theft is becoming more common — and more organized.

The map above depicts San Francisco Safeways with traditional ‘liquor without locks’ shelving as green dots.The yellow dots note Safeways where the liquor is locked behind glass doors, and the red dots show Safeways that lock liquor and wine both. The Safeways I visited in San Mateo County only lock up expensive stuff like Moet Chandon that goes for $80 and up, but I’d be thrilled to hear in the comments what East Bay and North Bay people are encountering.

The Liquor is locked but the wine sits out fine at the Church & Market Safeway (Image: Joe Kukura)

Is Safeway Really Encountering More Shoplifting?
They are, if you believe Safeway’s own self-reported numbers. California retailers across the board say shoplifting is on the rise, and many blame the surge on the passage of Prop. 47 — a 2014 measure that changed theft of under $950 worth of merchandise from a felony charge to a misdemeanor.

“Large retailers including Safeway, Target, Rite Aid and CVS pharmacies say shoplifting increased at least 15 percent, and in some cases, doubled since voters approved Proposition 47 and ended the possibility of charging shoplifting as a felony with the potential for a prison sentence,” the Associated Press reported in May of this year.

Only top-shelf liquor is locked at the Taraval Safeway. Image: Joe Kukura

“The local incident was part of a growing trend of wine theft - from restaurants, winemakers, collectors as well as supermarkets - that suggests an underground wine economy, based on stolen wines that might get top dollar being sold to presumably unsuspecting consumers, perhaps through ‘mom-and-pop’ stores or perhaps online,” the News noted.

They connect this with the infamous 2014 French Laundry wine heist and a counterfeit wine scam that bilked thousands of dollars from victims like William Koch of Koch Brothers fame.

Image: Joe Kukura

Other items are also kept locked at San Francisco Safeway stores.

Image: Joe Kukura

It could be that the increased locking of alcohol is a pilot program, and we may see more of our alcohol locked up in the near future. Safeway will have to determine the ratio of customers lost to merchandise lost when they make the alcohol more difficult to physically acquire off the shelf.

And I should also note that you can’t buy booze right up til 2 a.m. at all Safeway locations anymore. Some Safeway stores now close at 12 a.m., so their last call for alcohol is midnight. These stores are:

• 5290 Diamond Heights Boulevard
  
• 1335 Webster Street
  
• 290 King Street
  
• 145 Jackson Street
  
• 350 Bay Street

Related: Thieves Who Stole $300K In Wine From The French Laundry Still At Large
SF's Sketchiest Safeways, Ranked

If there's one thing San Franciscans love, it's San Francisco. If there are two things, it's San Francisco and anything artisanal and expensive. And so it is right at the highly profitable intersection of the two that we find the new Fog Point vodka from Alameda-based Hangar One. Made with captured San Francisco fog (more on that later), this $125-a-bottle limited edition adult beverage "is a true expression of California, distilled" (at least according to the company's website).

"Fog is a big part of the identity of San Francisco," an ad that sounds like it's announcing a cure for cancer helpfully informs us. "With Hangar One, water is at the center of everything we do. Vodka is made up from 60 percent water."

Just how, exactly, does the company capture the fog? "To create Fog Point, we installed our very own fog catchers to turn fog into fresh water," explains Hangar One, which is now a separate entity and business from the company that first made Hangar One vodka, St. George Spirits. "This water is then blended with vodka distilled from premium wine sourced from a sustainable vineyard on the Central Coast."

And just what is a fog catcher? "A fog catcher consists of a precision-engineered mesh canvas that is stretched out on a frame, then erected high in the air at a location rich in pure fog," the for-sale page explains. "As fog drifts through the mesh, millions of beads of moisture are caught in its fibers."

“We say it’s made of California because truly, you’re tasting the Bay,” head distiller Caley Shoemaker explained to Time. “You’re tasting the soil and the grapes and all of that comes together really well in this interesting little project we’ve done here.”

And while this "fog to bottle" product gets a pass because the company is donating all the profits to water conservation efforts, that's the only reason it gets a pass.

Now, if the fog they were capturing in service of booze included KarlTheFog's awful recycled jokes, we might feel differently.

Related: Waffle-Flavored Vodka Ruins National National Waffle Day

It's Etiquette Week at SFist, in which SFist's editors dole out some prescriptive advice for how to behave in this city we all share in order not to overly annoy, offend, or otherwise piss off your fellow citizens. Please read carefully.

This year’s Etiquette Week coincides with Bay to Breakers, our local tradition with perhaps the least dignity or protocol of any event in the city. The zany magic of Sunday’s 7.46-mile costumed footrace is an amusing annual San Francisco treasure, but Bay to Breakers is also dubious — even compared to Gay Pride or 4/20 — for displays of loutish and ignorant behavior. There is so much behaving badly at Bay to Breakers that Stanley Roberts could fill a three-hour “People Behaving Badly” marathon on KRON 4 Sunday night — but he is, after all, only one man.

We advise that you do Bay to Breakers like a pro, so you can blend in with the Salmon, the I Dream of Jeannie Jeannies, and a lot of cute and inspiring people whom you’ll be delighted you got out early on a Sunday morning and get to know.

Wear a Costume
Unless you think you can run Bay to Breakers in 45 minutes or less, you should be wearing a silly costume out there. You’ll feel a little out of place if you’re not dressed up, and it is the Bay to Breakers custom.

Wear Clothing, Or If Not Get Creative With Your Nudity
Bay to Breakers does indeed have a cult of naked runners. But that this practice has become passé, employed mostly anymore by the grandfatherly-looking segment. You can expose yourself creatively, but the “all naked with sneakers and tube socks” look is frankly quite fug. Particularly so when combined with a fanny pack.

Image: Joe Kukura

Register For The Race
Look how cute those registration bibs are on these two! Sure, Bay to Breakers is notorious for its lack of enforcing that you bought the registration bib. And Jay did note last year that Hayes Hill is the optimal place to crash. But do adult up, chip in on the street closure fees, the porta-potties, medical staffing, and the SFPD coverage necessary to make this Bay to Breakers mayhem possible. Online registration is closed, but you can register in person at the Zappos.com Bay to Breakers Expo Friday and Saturday.

Feign Respect For The "Alcohol Ban"
Fun Fact: Alcohol is technically banned from Bay to Breakers according to the race FAQs! But of course many of you will be drinking alcohol, and hopefully using our Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Map. At least be diplomatic, conceal your booze properly, and drink responsibly. Race volunteers and law enforcement will already have enough on their plate.

Image: Joe Kukura

Use The Porta-Potties
This really ought to go without saying, but public urination has been a problem for Bay to Breakers in years past. There are cadres of porta-potties every mile or so along the race course, please respect the neighborhoods and use them.

Get To The Start Line By 8 a.m.
Shoot for 7:30, actually, so you’re on time for the 8 a.m. start! (You may want to bring tortillas.) This race starts early Sunday, and they’ll start tearing down the official Start Line if you straggle past 8:45.

Image: Tom Hilton via Flickr

Be Patient, Don’t Push
Just accept that the race course will be very crowded during the first leg on Howard Street, and ridiculously mobbed when you’re on Hayes Hill. You cannot expect enough elbow room to do any good freeform running until you get to Golden Gate Park, that’s just how this race flows. There’s no sense stressing over your speed or race time; you’ll miss much of the good times that make this race so special.

No Wheeled Objects Or Floats
Newer San Franciscans may not remember the popular old Bay To Breakers tradition of wheeled floats and mobile bars, often equipped with kegs. This all sounds great, but the proprietors were terrible at cleaning up after themselves. Thus, any wheeled contraptions are justly banned.

Realize that this is the 105th annual running of the Bay to Breakers Race, so it’s an event with history, customs, and tradition. You can be still irreverent or even intoxicated while also honoring custom and maintaining decorum. After all, Bay to Breakers is a blast and we sometimes need to lift our spirits lifted after that earthquake that happened 110 years ago.

Related: Etiquette Week: How To Be Drunk

As is our custom in the days leading up to the annual Bay to Breakers footrace, bacchanal, and sh*tshow, SFist again presents a fully updated Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Map to help you locate more booze, cigarettes, and whatever other various sundries you may need when stuck in the remote regions of the race like Golden Gate Park.

For the first year ever, this interactive Google Map is now equipped with the “little blue dot” functionality on both iOS and Android smartphones to show where you are in relation to the closest liquor store! You also see a blue line showing the race course itself, and red bottles representing the exact locations of the liquor stores open during race hours. This map can be accessed on your smartphone during the race by visiting bit.ly/b2bliquor or via more detailed download instructions at the bottom of this article.

There is only one major change to this year’s map, but it’s a big one. Bi-Rite Market on Divisadero will shutter its doors until 1 p.m. this Sunday, so their craft microbrews and fancy wine varietals will not be available to you drunken, Bay-to-Breakering fools. This is a shocker, considering how this Bi-Rite had so magnificently catered to drunken Bay to Breakers foolery in recent years (even selling cups and bottle openers to facilitate open container consumption). The morning closure of this Bi-Rite leaves the freshly repainted New Star-Ell Liquor across the street as the very last liquor store you will encounter directly on the race course — even though you are not yet even halfway through the race!

Beyond that is where this map comes in handy. The pastoral but remote nether regions of Golden Gate Park pose an enormous challenge to those “runners” whose main running involves “running out of alcohol”. There are no liquor stores along the park-adjacent Fulton Street and Lincoln Way, and liquor stores are difficult as heck to find if you’re not familiar with the Richmond and Sunset neighborhoods. If accessing the map on your smartphone, your whereabouts will be shown as a location-sensitive blue dot to help you determine the most logical and easy spots to hop off the race course, procure more booze, and return to the revelry of your inebriated slouch to the Finish Line.

You can access the map on your smartphone during Sunday’s festivities if you can just remember the URL bit.ly/b2bliquor. If you’d rather bookmark it ahead of time in anticipation of being too hammered to properly type, here are instructions to bookmark the URL on an iPhone or to bookmark the URL on Android. (This being a Google Map, iPhone users may need to sign in to your Google account — or for that matter even have a Google account). Google Maps is pretty good about showing locations of Golden Gate Park's little paths out to the avenues, and the liquor stores’ addresses and names will display in a legend if you click on the red bottle icons.

Related: Matier & Ross (Sort of) Finger SFist as Culprit in Bay to Breakers Booze Mayhem