State Senator Scott Wiener has introduced new legislation to create "Entertainment Zones" to help San Francisco's downtown with its economic recovery, activating certain designated areas where people would be free to roam with their booze.

They're called "Refreshment Areas" or "Entertainment Zones," and some cities around the country established them during the pandemic to promote business at local bars and restaurants, giving customers more outdoor space in which to move with their to-go cocktails and beer.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, for instance, created a "Refreshment Area" in July 2020 that has held on to today, in which people can carry open containers of alcohol, as long they're designated containers, up to 16 ounces, and Ohio created a similar designation that allows cities to design their own within certain parameters.

San Francisco had street-closure areas like Valencia Street and Hayes Street that two-block areas with a lot of outdoor seating in the street, but these stopped short of letting people wander freely (technically) with the drinks they ordered. And while there was some talk about loosening up the laws around open containers, New Orleans-style, back at the height of COVID, that never actually happened.

Now, as KRON4 reports, Sen. Wiener has proposed SB 969, which would create the ability for cities to establish temporary, open-container "Entertainment Zones" where brick-and-mortar bars and restaurants could all sell to-go drinks, like when a street festival is going on.

The law would also enable brick-and-mortar businesses to better profit when actual street fairs are happening — the law, as it's currently written, allows booth vendors to sell to-go drinks at fairs, but local businesses can't do the same. (Those rules have been relaxed at Folsom Street Fair and Castro Street Fair in SF, but not generally.)

"Getting people back out in the streets is key to the economic recovery of cities across California," Wiener says in a statement.

"The COVID-19 pandemic devastated foot traffic to downtown businesses," Wiener continues. "Cities in California vary widely in their recovery trajectories, but none has yet reached the levels of foot traffic seen in 2019 in their downtowns. This reduced activity threatens to stymie economic recovery in San Francisco [in particular]."

The law would restrict these "Entertainment Zones" to specific boundaries, and hours of operation, and law enforcement would need to be made aware of when they are open business.

Mayors London Breed of San Francisco and Matt Mahan of San Jose are both behind the bill, saying they think it will help bolster foot traffic in their cities' downtowns.

"This legislation will help revitalize and diversify Downtowns that need support, boost local economies, and support small businesses,” Breed said in a statement. “In San Francisco we are bringing different strategies to create more dynamic neighborhoods, especially in areas that for too long have been focused on simply being a 9-to-5 destination. Entertainment Zones are exactly the kind of creative, flexible tool we need to help local jurisdictions build an even stronger economic recovery."

If and when this legislation passes and gets signed by the governor, it's set to take effect in January 2025 — so we're still 11 months away from random weeknight drinking in the streets. But just in time for Dry January next winter, there may be a new temptation for you downtown!

Previously: 4AM Last Call Bill Voted Down Once Again, This Time In the Assembly

Photo: bingbingdimsum/Instagram

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

Those in the Western Addition/Nopa/Divisadero 'hood may already be familiar with the surprisingly nice booze selection and deep bourbon catalogue at Save-More Market, a few steps up from Little Star Pizza at 1598 McAllister Street, on the Divisadero corner opposite Green Earth Natural Foods. But even nearby locals may not be aware, given how dusty, dimly lit, and nondescript the store appears to be, especially by comparison to the more brightly lit Green Earth and another convenience grocer and liquor store, the kitty-corner Transfer Market at 861 Divisadero. Thus the Chronicle's Jonathan Kauffman saw fit this week to call out the "superlative stash" of bourbons that have been collected by Save-More store owner Sam Salfiti, who explains that to compete with the two other stores in the same intersection, he decided he would need to specialize.

Citing the bourbon boom that he saw happening around San Francisco about a decade ago, he tells the Chronicle, "I figured we were going to do it different. A little more high end, a bigger selection."

His shelves are packed with labels like Buffalo Trace, High West, and George Dickel, with multiple high-end and aged varieties of each. Salfiti has also taken to attending Whiskey Fest each year when it comes to San Francisco, and he's now become a bit of a whiskey aficionado, traveling to Kentucky to tour distilleries, and buying exclusive single-barrel bottlings that he sells out of the market in the section marked Sam’s Private Whiskey Collection — a big hit with local in-the-know whiskey mavens.

And perhaps this is evidence of the ever-heightening, Valencia-fication of Divisadero: Salfiti's found a market for some decidedly high-end booze of other sorts in addition to the cheaper bottles you'd expect to find at a corner market — including bottles of anejo mezcal north of $100.

It's funny that Save-More has flown under the radar this long, but once you see the store you may know why — it's not necessarily drawing a ton of clientele for the rest of its stock. Meanwhile, Healthy Spirits, the corner-store bourbon and beer specialists, have three well regarded locations at the edge of the Castro, in the Richmond, and Bernal Heights, and the Outer Richmond also is home to the unassuming Bourbon County, which boasts a couple of bottles of the cult-famous Pappy Van Winkle priced over $1000, and kept in a special glass case in back.

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.

The trend at many top colleges and universities these days is to ban the serving of hard alcohol at on-campus parties, and in the wake of the highly publicized Brock Turner case this year, Stanford is further expanding their prohibition to include the possession of standard-sized bottles of hard alcohol in students' rooms. As The Atlantic reports, Stanford's Office of Alcohol Policy and Education is framing this is as a "harm reduction strategy," even though it sounds like a virtually unenforceable one.

Stanford already banned hard alcohol, including shots and mixed drinks, at most on-campus undergraduate events, as noted over a year ago on Fusion, allowing only beer and wine to be served. But the updated alcohol policy, arriving just as Stanford students are arriving back on campus, makes it against the rules to have 750-milliliter bottles (fifths) of alcohol that are 40 proof or above in undergraduate housing. The strange logic here, according to campus booze czar Ralph Castro, is that it's harder to assemble a huge bar in one's room if it's all made of pint bottles, and therefore it will make it harder for students to binge drink. "Our intention is not a total prohibition of a substance," says Castro, "but rather a targeted approach that limits high-risk behavior and has the backing of empirical studies on restricting the availability of and access to alcohol."

Also, university administrators believe that it's harder for students to find liquor stores that sell smaller bottles, like pints, because places like Safeway don't do that?

As of now, hard alcohol will only be permitted at on-campus events hosted by membership organizations composed of 100 percent graduate students.

The empirical studies he's referring to may include this one from 2001, out of Harvard, about the impact of campus alcohol bans. That reports is a bit problematic because it focused in part on schools that had total prohibitions on drinking, including beer and wine, but it found a correlation between banning alcohol and lower rates of heavy drinking — though they admitted that could be due "to other factors, such as self-selection of students to these schools [where all alcohol is banned]."

It should be noted that the alcohol that Brock Turner blamed for the sexual assault he was convicted of likely was not condoned at the time, or being served with the university's blessing, since they had strict controls on hard alcohol going back at least a couple of years.

Not to mention, it is quite possible to black out on beer. But I digress. And I wouldn't know.

Previously: Swedish Students Who Tackled Stanford Rapist Speak Out

So it's Friday afternoon and you're probably sitting at your desk thinking about weekend plans. Maybe heading out to dinner, or meeting friends at a bar? Many of you, no doubt, will end up at some point hopping into an Uber or Lyft to get to or from your party destination of choice. However, you likely don't realize that by eschewing taxis in favor of their ride-hail competitors you're depriving yourself of one of the great joys in life: Legally getting drunk in a taxi.

That's right, as the Examiner reminds us, it's completely legal to drink alcohol in the backseat of cab. Say hello to your new best friend: California Vehicle Code 23221. According to the Shouse California Law Group, this gives passengers in party buses, limos, and taxis the right to get totally sauced on their way to wherever. This, it should be strongly noted, does NOT apply to Ubers or Lyfts as those are considered private vehicles.

So hop in a cab, crack a few beers, and split the fare five ways on five different credit cards (as Thrillist notes, California cabs legally have to accept major credit cards and are required to split fares if so requested) — just remember to leave a nice tip. Oh, and don't puke in the cab, as that will cost you up to $100 (but legally no more!) in cleaning fees.

You're welcome, and happy weekend travels.

Related: S.F. Cabs Often Refuse Fares, Endanger People, and Sometimes Have Bed Bugs

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

A man with a "multistate criminal history" has another item for his rap sheet, after he allegedly took a huge piss on the cabin floor of a plane shortly after it left San Francisco International Airport.

Officials don't know what 28-year-old Ludlow, Kentucky resident Jordan Robert Gardner (that's him on the right, in what looks like a casting shot for Justified, but is actually an undated booking photo provided by the North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department) was doing in the Bay Area last week, but it's clear that he ended his visit with a bang!

After what he described as "only" two double shots of vodka at a bar at SFO, Gardner boarded a Charlotte-bound plane Saturday night. That's when the trouble began. According to an affidavit filed by the FBI and reported by the Charlotte Observer, about an hour later Gardner "pulled his pants down, arched his back, and urinated on the floor of the airplane."

"The passenger sitting next to Gardner summoned a flight attendant, who saw Gardner pulling up his pants." Even though the deed had clearly been done, she sent him to the bathroom, where she found him passed out on its floor 15 minutes later.

"The flight attendant tried to clean the urine with club soda, but it still smelled when the plane landed at Charlotte Douglas," the Observer reports.

When the plane landed at 7:45 a.m. local time on Sunday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police were there to greet him, and reported that they "could still smell alcohol on his breath 11 hours after the flight took off."

Then again, maybe it wasn't booze after all, as the FBI says that Gardner blamed the alcohol smell on "the gum he was chewing." Ah, yes, "Violent Vodka" Hubba Bubba! I know it well.

According to the FBI, Gardner has charges and arrests in multiple states "for things such as battery, trespassing, auto theft, passing bad checks, being under the influence and vandalism." And now he has a new one: A criminal complaint of destruction of aircraft, for which he will appear in Mecklenburg County court on Thursday.

Looks like you'll have to stick to just pouring your own damn adult beverage of choice in those morning Grandes. The Chronicle reports that Starbucks has decided to withdraw its application for a beer and wine license at three of its San Francisco coffee shops after running into opposition from both the Board of Supervisors and SFPD.

According to the paper, the three locations that almost allowed you to drunkenly tell your boss with a straight face that you had "only stepped out to Starbucks for a quick cup" were 565 Clay Street in the Financial District, 280 King Street near AT&T Park and 685 Beach Street at Fisherman’s Wharf.

“The department hopes this sends a loud message to state regulators who supported these licenses that they need to recognize the concerns of our community and our local government,” said SFPD ABC liaison Lieutenant Dave Falzon.

The attempt to sell beer and wine was part of a larger move, called Starbucks Evenings, that sought to make the daytime hangouts double as evening chill spots. "We’ve always been your neighborhood morning stop—a place to help you start your day," reads marketing copy describing the nocturnal plan. "Now we’re bringing a little delight to your evenings too. [...] So take a moment to unwind, meet up with friends and enjoy a glass of wine and a delicious little something—with us."

Hmm, perhaps SFPD was just trying to save us all from our own bad taste?

Regarless, it looks like the company hasn't given up: “We will continue to thoughtfully assess the opportunity to expand the menu in the future while working with partnership with the city,” Starbucks spokeswoman Linda Mills explained to the Financial Times. So, come this holiday season, you may be able drink booze out of your Starbucks red cup after all.

Related: Starbucks Wine In A Cup

In a reaction that will surprise no one who has ever been or met a college-aged person, Stanford University students are expressing vigorous opposition to a proposal that seeks to curb on-campus alcohol abuse by banning booze in undergraduate dorms.

In an email sent to students last month, as CBS 5 reports, Stanford president John L. Hennessy "explained there were too many instances of undergraduates over-drinking, and that hard alcohol has been connected to many problems, including sexual assault."

The timing of the email coincided with the conviction of Brock Turner, a Stanford swim team star accused of publicly sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman in 2015.

In his email, Hennessy proposed a hard alcohol ban for undergraduate housing. And students responded with joy, saying the ban is a great idea! Ha ha just kidding, they think the idea blows.

In an on-campus vote Friday, students opposed any change to the school's current policy, which allows on-campus drinking "as long as we keep the doors open," sophomore Cole Simmons, a Theta Delta Chi fraternity member, told CBS 5.

“I think you’re kidding yourself if you think that kids aren’t going to buy hard alcohol,” senior Myles Keating, another Theta Delta Chi frat member said.

“It’s absolutely right that we’re discussing sexual assault and discussing alcohol use and making sure that it’s healthy and happy but an outright ban is taking a law-enforcement approach to what is really a medical problem.”

A Stanford spokesperson contacted by SFist declined comment on the possible ban, and said that they administration is "still collecting student feedback" before determining if tighter booze regulations are the way to go.

For Simmons' part, he's certain that a ban will make things worse, not better.

“If there’s a ban on hard alcohol then people are going to have it anyway,” Simmons told CBS 5.

“At a lot of other schools, talking to my friends, they’re kind of scared of their RAs; they’re scared their RAs are going to take their alcohol and pour them down the sinks and so they always do it with a closed door, trying to chug all their hard alcohol or beer before the RA could get to them.”

There seems to be no bubble when it comes to the Bay Area Beer Boom, a movement that's put us in the elite class of a select few American metro areas with vibrant craft beer scenes. San Francisco proper, in fact, is reaching a pre-Prohibition number of breweries, and just beyond our 7-by-7 are some nationally respected and locally loved gems. Yes, we might be a bit under the West Coast hop spell, but we've got a wide variety of styles in the IPA category and beyond. Here are some of the best local beers, most of which you can find year-round, that hopefully begin to represent that.

1776 IBA — Local Brewing
Local brewmaster Reagan Long calls her 1776 India Black Ale a "Cascadian Dark Ale." Named for the founding date of of the Presidio, this one is the kind of IPA that promises to coax drinkers into darker beer territory, with cedar and pine flavors from both earthy hops and roasty malts. The best way to get it? In SoMa on Bluxome Street, where Local's taproom will set you up with a flight of all the latest. — Caleb Pershan

Drake's Brewing — Denogonizer
Why does Drake's call this self-described "dank, citrusy" beer the "Denogginizer"? No, it's not anything to do with alcohol's effect on your brain — back in 2004, when they were incubating the brew, a pressure valve flew off and nearly decapitated a staffer. The rest is big, bold, award-winning history. Drink it in bottles — the 24 oz. kind — or Drake's East Bay tap rooms. — Eve Batey

Courtesy of Ruhstaller

Courtesy of Almanac Beer Co.

Courtesy of Magnolia

Anchor Brewing — Liberty Ale
Since 1975, Anchor has been brewing its distinctive Liberty Ale using, they say, "traditional craft brewing methods," so if you think the old ways are the best, this is the one for you. First formulated to commemorate the bicentennial of Paul Revere's famous ride, Anchor claims that the venerable brew is the one that can be credited with "starting a revolution"... in beer, that is. — Eve Batey

Image via Speakeasy.

Faction fligth, Victoria C. via Yelp

Photo: Adam Barhan

Photo: Iconoquare

Fieldwork Brewing Company via Facebook

Photo via 21st Amendment.

Marin Brewing Co. via Facebook

Fort Point Beer Company via Facebook

Related: The 14 Best Beer Bars In SF And Oakland

Though the once-official Twitter account for San Francisco's SantaCon "celebration" has been declaring the event dead since last year, organizers say the bacchanal is good to go on December 12, even as area bars and restaurants reportedly warn red-and-white clad partiers away from their establishments. Or are they?

Way back in 2012 Eater SF helpfully created a "Go Back To The North Pole" sign intended "to help protect the restaurant and bar owners of this city." Now it's 2015, and NBC Bay Area reports that "signs that declare 'No Love For SantaCon' are popping up in bars and restaurants to ward off the debauchery associated with SantaCon." It's worth noting, however, that the broadcast news station did not actually provide any concrete local examples of said signs! Have you seen any while out and about?

As Caleb noted in his pre-SantaCon report from this time last year, the now-national event's relationship with its originating city of San Francisco has grown slightly less sweet since its inception in 1994, with more and more residents complaining about participants displaying drunken daytime debauchery and boorish behavior. Perhaps that friction between naughty and nice is one of the reasons organizers say that "Some Rogue Elf has taken over the SF SantaCon Twitter site, spreading naughtiness about SantaCon being Dead."

The "rogue" death announcement from 2014:

And a second one, from October of this year:

However, organizers say that "It’s simply not true. SantaCon is alive and well and will continue to spread joy and merriment to all the good little boys and girls of San Francisco," even as they urge participants to "all take a moment to remember the point of this festive event. Do something fun. Be more creative than just sucking down egg nog. Spread a little joy. Challenge your elf to do something this year besides hit the bars."

As always, participants are asked to bring a new, unwrapped toy to give to the San Francisco Fire Department’s annual Toy Drive, which they should drop off at the SFFD’s special collection truck at 351 Geary by 11:30 a.m. on SantaCon Saturday. According to NBC Bay Area, last year SantaConners donated over 3000 toys, inspiring toy drive chairperson Sally Casazza to say "I love SantaCon!"

"It's a great icebreaker for men and women," she says, and "we reap the benefits of it by getting toys we wouldn't have had otherwise."

In any case, anti-SantaCon signs or no signs, thousands of consumed revelers are expected to descend on Union Square at noon on December 12. After that, who knows how far they'll roam. Will you be joining them, or shaking your fist from the sidelines?

Previously: 'Tis The Night Before The Santacon Nightmare

Whether you just need some decent whisky to put in your hip flask or you're in the market for a bottle of Carpano Antica to mix your Negronis with, San Francisco has a bevy of fine liquor stores to choose from. This being San Francisco, you can probably find Aperol and a few decent amari at your corner grocery, but below we bring you a selection of spots that specialize in serving your snobbish cocktail needs, as well as your basic weeknight boozing needs. — Jay Barmann

Blackwell's Wines and Spirits
For over ten years, Blackwell's has been the booze store of choice for Outer Richmonders seeking an experience beyond the (often reliable, but rarely amazing) corner store. Owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Dita and Gary Blackwell, you're greeted like family from the moment you walk in the door. Of course, they stock the usual suspects (scotch, tequila, vodka, etc), but you can also find rarer treats — that Calvados you remember from junior year abroad, or that crazy Japanese malt whiskey you drank that bonkers night in '02. (Um, hypothetically.) If you're buying hard booze on the West Side, Blackwell's is your absolute best bet. -- Eve Batey
5620 Geary Boulevard between 20th and 21st Avenues

Photo of Coit Liquors: Kevin Y./Yelp

Just a few of the new whiskies Healthy Spirits added to their selection earlier this month. Photo: from their website.

Photo: Yelp

Via Google streetview

Royal Cuckoo Market via Facebook

St. Clair's via Yelp

Photo: Facebook

Kate D. via Yelp