CBS News California’s Julie Watts and her daughter’s fifth grade class investigated the harmful “Sephora Kids” skincare trend aimed at tweens and helped bring attention to AB 728, a bill that passed a committee 4-2 but was quietly killed in Sacramento.

The students partnered with Watts and the CBS News California team to investigate a troubling trend: beauty brands marketing adult-grade skincare to tweens. Their reporting revealed that viral products — often promoted by kid-fluencers — frequently contain potent ingredients like retinol and alpha hydroxy acids, which dermatologists say can harm young skin.

Assemblymember Alex Lee of Milpitas, the youngest member serving on the Assembly, recently authored AB 728, which seeks to restrict the sale of certain anti-aging skincare products to children under 13.

“Lots of companies profit — they make money — off of things we don’t feel good about,” Lee explained to the fifth graders. “I think it’s really bad that companies make money off of children.”

11-year-old Scarlett Goddard-Strahan told the Assembly she unknowingly used a retinol product and developed painful side effects that left her unable to sleep for two weeks:

Years later, I still have bumps on my cheeks. If you look at my cheeks now, they get red and itchy when I sweat and when I am out in the sun. I used those products because I wanted to feel pretty and more confident. But now I feel embarrassed and pretty self-conscious.

During the report, other students pointed to how brightly colored packaging draws kids in, while health warnings are printed too small to notice.

SFist asked our own 11-year-old about her experience with beauty products, to which she responded, “The trends can trick our brains into wanting to try them.” She said she already knew to avoid retinol prior to the news report but not the other ingredients. "I got red bumps on my face one time."

But the bill faced pushback from industry groups and some health advocates. Margaret Gladstein, representing the California Retailers Association, warned it would be “impossible” for stores to enforce. Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan cautioned that defining “anti-aging” in law would be difficult, noting that many anti-aging ingredients have broader uses.

Although the bill cleared its first policy committee with a 4–2 vote, it was quietly shelved by Appropriations Chair Buffy Wicks, halting its progress for the year. The students, according to Watts, are still waiting for a response to their request to interview her.

Watts explained her core motivation for pursuing this story and deciding to cover it through their eyes, “If I, as an investigative reporter, can’t figure out which of these products are safe, then what about parents who don’t investigate for a living? What about your parents? And that’s the concern.”

While AB 728 may be off the table for now, the students’ campaign has already raised awareness around a growing concern: that children are being marketed — and sold — skincare products their bodies aren’t ready for, without clear warnings or oversight.

And if their early activism is any indication, these kids aren’t done yet.

Image: ATHVisions/Getty Images

There's tempest in a pint glass brewing over pint-sized patrons being brought to breweries and taprooms, as a social media flare-up reignites the debate over parents who bring their kids into drinking establishments where minors are legally allowed.

It is not uncommon to see Skee-ball, Jenga, and other games at San Francisco bars, which can largely be attributed to how San Francisco is full of Peter Pan types who never grow up. But some taprooms and breweries use these games to actively woo the parent-and-kids patron class. And there is nothing illegal about this — a California Type 47 ot Type 75 liquor license classifies an establishment as an “Eating Place” or a "Brewpub-Restaurant," and you are absolutely allowed to bring kids there, just as you can bring children into an Applebee’s that serves Dollaritas.

Though this has become a point of contention in the craft beer community, as many beer snobs and/or drunks just don’t want kids around during their drinking experience. The tweet below has brought this discourse back into the conversation, and the Chronicle reports on the reignited debate over whether kids should be brought to breweries, with some arguing that the taprooms are becoming too kid-friendly.  

“STOP BRINGING YOUR KIDS TO BREWERIES IM TRYING TO RELAX,” says the post from @tapptastical (which is not a particularly beer-focused Twitter account), and it’s racked up 3.5 million views as of press time. The 1,100 quote-tweets are a pretty fair mix of pro-kids and no-kids responses. But toddlers in bars and restaurants have been a contentious issue in SF for years, likely because the adult population here skews so strongly toward people without children.

And really, taprooms are uniquely well-suited for bringing the kiddos. They’re large, spread-out spaces, often with many outdoor tables, and menus full of kid-friendly items like cheeseburgers and pizza. Many taprooms have even chosen to install games and features that can occupy children while their parents drink. As Bernal Heights’ Barebottle Brewing Company co-owner Lester Koga quipped to the Chronicle, “When we opened, people would call us Babybottle.”

And Koga defends how parents pack the joint with their wee ones. “That’s what at its core makes brewery taprooms great — they’re meeting places,” he added. “You’re not going there to get plastered and find somebody to hook up with. It’s an environment that feels safe for your kids.”

Not to mention, brewery taprooms tend to be open during the daytime — which is nice when everybody needs to be home and tucked in by 7 pm.

There is also the simple economics of how a four-top party with two kids is probably just going to spend more money than some individual beer nerd, or two of them on a date. And in these “people don’t go out anymore” days, families may be a more financially reliable demographic than the childless.

We see this in the Mission District’s Monk’s Kettle announcing their move to Rockridge. The craft beer crowd is aging, becoming more likely to have kids and live in the suburbs, while the younger generation seems to prefer White Claws and other seltzer drinks, and not procreating.

And to those who can’t stand kids being around, there's no shortage of options to drink at bars that do not serve food, or allow minors inside.

Related: Zazie Owner Vents Frustration About Small Children In Restaurants [SFist]

Image: Xinyu L. via Yelp

San Francisco’s “More dogs than kids” stereotype just bought a few more years of relevance, as Census numbers confirm a still-declining family population, and only Bayview, Presidio, and Sea Cliff have more than 20% of their populations under 18.

SFist and the broader national media have never shied away from discussing how San Francisco has the lowest percentage of families with kids under 18 of any major U.S. city, which is to say, we are America's most childless city. The Chronicle took stock of this again with the first batch of 2020 Census numbers last August, finding we were still at a national low of 13% of the population 18 and under in 2020, down from 13.4% in 2010, and a high of 16% in the 1990s.

The Chronicle has updated those numbers with the latest Census revisions. We’re still at just 13%, but their new analysis breaks down the population density of kids by neighborhood with some surprising findings (as seen below, darker blue means more kids, lighter blue means fewer).    

As observed above, the Tenderloin does not have the highest concentration of kids in the city, as has often been believed. (The Castro actually has a higher percentage of kids under 18!)  By raw numbers or by percentages, the Tenderloin is not in the top ten for the population of children.

The highest percentage of kids can be found in Sea Cliff, but that’s a tiny-population anomaly (just over 500 kids and teens in total). Bayview (21.1% under 18) has nearly 10,000 kids and comes in second. The Presidio is third, but again, very small, sample size, and Visitacion Valley is a real kids' neighborhood with about 19.5% under 18, followed by Glean Park at 18.2%.

The lowest percentage of kids can be found in Lincoln Park (again, negligible population size), but just mid-single digit percentages of kids are found in other relatively childless neighborhoods of McLaren Park (4% under 18), Nob Hill (5.2%), and Japantown (6.6%).

We can argue whether this is about housing affordability, percentage of LGBTQ population, or the prohibitive cost of having kids these days (it’s likely all three). But the downward trend in the SF children’s population is certainly going to continue. Per the Chronicle, “it’s likely that the youth populations of these neighborhoods will drop even more in the coming decade.”

Related: San Francisco Only Got More Childless In the Last Decade [SFist]

Image: @usa4 via Twitter

For several decades now, San Francisco has had one of the lowest percentages of school-age children and teens of any major city in the country. And the latest numbers from the 2020 Census show that SF's youth population has only decreased as a share of the total population in the last ten years.

We learned on Thursday, with the release of data for the purposes of congressional redistricting, that SF's population rose by about 90,000 people between 2010 and 2020. And while California and the country as a whole grew increasingly diverse, San Francisco's demographics shifted only slightly in the last decade, with the percentage of white people declining 2.8%, the percentage of mixed race people rising from 3% to 5%, and other demographic percentages moving less than one percentage point up or down.

Now, according to a Chronicle analysis, we learn that San Francisco's percentage of children under the age of 18 slipped from 13.4% in 2010 to just 13% in 2020 — a continuation of a trend that goes back to 1990 when youths represented 16% of the city's population.

Growing up in San Francisco continues to be an uncommon thing, largely driven by a lack of affordable family housing, and various other factors including a less than stellar public school district.

Much of the Bay Area has lower percentages of kids under 18 than other parts of the country, but San Francisco has the lowest share by far — the next in line is Sonoma, with nearly 20% of its population under 18, and Contra Costa County has the largest share, with 22.6%.

What does this mean for the city overall? Unfortunately it could mean continued lack of broad support for the school system, though an investment in the city's schools could succeed in keeping families with small kids from fleeing the city when those kids reach school age.

Former Supervisor Norman Yee, as the Chronicle notes, wrote a policy briefing four years ago arguing for the creation of more affordable family housing, saying, "When we lose our families, we lose part of what makes San Francisco a strong, vibrant community."

And former director of the Planning Department John Rahaim wrote in an introduction to the paper, "We have a responsibility to implement family friendly housing policies that will allow families from all socioeconomic backgrounds to live here and thrive."

But how do you reverse a trend that's been ongoing for 30 years, coupled with an era when fewer people are having kids overall? The short answer: you probably can't. But maybe they can keep the percentage of kids from falling any further.

Related: Census Data Release Shows US and California Growing More Diverse — and San Francisco Gained 90,000 People

Photo: Jairo Gonzalez

This is the worst of the worst.

73-year-old Ralph Flynn and his wife, Carolyn Flynn pleaded guilty in Santa Clara County Superior Court to a bevy of horrific sex crimes against their adopted son.

According to the Chronicle, the Flynns adopted a 9-year-old orphan from Russia and turned him into a sex slave for the entirety of his lost childhood. The couple was arrested in November of 2015 and the orphan, named Denis and now a 25-year-old massage therapist, is pursuing a lawsuit against his former adoptive parents.

Dennis is the second adoptive son that Ralph has abused. Another boy, now a grown adult, alleges that Ralph and his previous wife abused him beginning in 1972. Ralph has admitted to as much. He has two grown biological sons of his own (one with each wife) and doesn't appear to have molested them.

The Chron reported last year:

Both boys, who were between 7 and 9 years old, said they were called into the master bedroom, where Ralph Flynn initiated sexual contact, and that the abuse continued consistently for 10 years and included masturbation and oral sex.
Ralph Flynn would bribe the boys with money, activities or desired items to coerce their participation, according to their accounts. When the boys were older, their adoptive mothers started to molest them as well, they said.

Throughout this, Ralph owned a popular coffee shop in Cupertino.

"I lost my virginity to my mom," Denis told investigators. Investigators believe both of Ralph's wives began molesting their respective adoptive sons when the boys were in their teens.

When Denis told his adoptive parents that the police knew what had happened, they told him to lie about it — while they were unknowingly being recorded by authorities. (GOOD FOR YOU DENIS!)

Once detained, Ralph was asked if he showed love to his adoptive sons. "Yes, yes, in a loving way," he said, admitted that "loving way" meant masturbation and oral sex.

Ralph and Carolyn Flynn copped their plea just as jury selection for their trial was beginning. It saved them — and Denis — the burden of testifying. Ralph has been in jail this whole time while Carolyn was out on bail. Now they're both going to prison.

Ralph pleaded no contest to three felony counts of lewd acts on a child and faces 24-years in prison. Carolyn pleaded no contest to two counts of rape and faces a 12-year sentence. Both will have to serve 85% of their sentences and register as sex offenders forever.

"I was preparing to go to war and go into this battle and now I don't have to. I am feeling relief and peace after all these years and excited for the future and building my life up," said Denis.

If you want to read his complete story, as told to the Chronicle last year, it's here.

Related: Brothers Face Trial Over Torture-Revenge on Child Molester

Homeless mom panhandles on Market Street with newborn baby: “I’m not harming her in any way.”https://t.co/nSmkszW1qZ via @hknightsf pic.twitter.com/2NItA9gsLe

— SFChronicle (@sfchronicle) July 30, 2017

34-year-old homeless mom Megan Doudney and her six-week-old daughter Nedahlia panhandle just about every day on Market Street, and the pair's appearances have been garnering a fair amount of attention in recent weeks.

The Chronicle's Heath Knight got to know Doudney and discovered some details on her situation — details that might stop folks from snapping her picture and calling 911.

According to Knight, Doudney arrived in San Francisco five years ago on a Greyhound bus. The Nebraska native and cosmetology school student headed west in search of medical marijuana to help her back problems. Once here, scoliosis and chronic back pain led Doudney to become hooked on opioids. She became involved in a relationship with man for a few months and became pregnant. Nedahlia's dad is not in the child's life and doesn't pay child support.

Now off drugs, Doudney and Nedahlia have a private room at Hamilton Family Shelter and receive $900 a month in social security. The shelter withholds 75% of that income for Doudney's future once she's off the street. Because her remaining $225 a month doesn't cover the cost of caring for a newborn, Doudney panhandles, holding a sign on Market Street that reads "Anything helps."

Doudney keeps Nadahlia with her on the street which has upset some onlookers both worried about the child and concerned that the newborn is being exploited for sympathy. Authorities have received numerous 911 calls about the pair, and posts to NextDoor and social media have appeared in a flurry over the past few weeks. One North Beach artist followed Doudney and Nadahlia with a sign that “Women Against Child Abuse!”

"I love her," Doudney told the Chron of her daughter. "I wanted my entire life to be a mommy. Even when I was a little kid in school, they'd say, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' I always said, 'A mommy.'"

Other than a brief bout of low blood sugar — discovered after an onlooker reported the child to authorities as not looking well, per CBS 5 — Nadahlia is a healthy baby girl. The baby received a medical check-up as part of the city's mandated process for determining if Nadahlia should be removed from her mom.

"It's really important to remember that being homeless alone is not a reason that our agency would remove a child from a family," explained Chandra Johnson, spokeswoman for the Human Services Agency.

"She's using this child to make money. I think situations like this should be taken as seriously as human trafficking and prostitution," concerned citizen Olya Levtushenko told CBS 5 last week. Yevtushenko has been posting pictures of the pair on Facebook.

Doudney told Knight she'd like people to approach her instead of judging her and Nadahlia from afar. "I am human. You can stop and talk to me. You don't have to shake your head and give me dirty looks."

The small family can stay in their room at Hamilton for three to six months. Doudney is working with San Francisco city services to determine her and Nadahlia's next steps.

"I'm going to do what I need to do to support my child. Even if that means, you know, having to deal with stuff like this," Doudney told CBS 5.

Related: Video: Homeless Woman Gives Birth At Muni Stop, Anonymous Bike Messenger Hailed As Hero

Many of us were left scratching our heads at the news of a child dumped near the SF Zoo Monday evening. Late Tuesday night police released more details on the case, including information on the child's sibling and her parents.

According to a press release sent by late Tuesday by the San Francisco Police Department, witnesses say they saw "a female throwing items out of her vehicle on the 2800 block of the Great Highway" before they saw her "push her 5-year old daughter out of the stationary vehicle causing the child to land on the concrete."

The woman, who police do not identify, then drove away "with her one-year old son leaving her daughter unattended and uncared for."

As previously reported, this all happened at around 8:30 p.m. Monday evening. At the same time as the kid was allegedly shoved from the car, an ambulance passed through the scene at the intersection of Great Highway and Sloat Boulevard. It stopped, and paramedics cared for the kid, who "did not appear to be injured."

At the same time that the woman was first witnessed tossing stuff from the car, "a male on a skateboard was observed leaving the scene," police say. That man, who police say is the father of the one-year-old who remained in the car, does not appear to have seen the woman kick the older child out of the vehicle.

Though "SFPD officers searched hotels along the Great Highway for both parents but were unable to locate either parent," Tuesday night police managed to track down the skateboarding man, they say. He "disclosed where the infant child was located and SFPD Special Victims Unit investigators along with Child Protective Services representatives located the infant child in Oakland with a baby sitter."

Both kids are now in the care of San Francisco's Child Protective Services, police say, and their mom "has surrendered herself into the custody of SVU investigators and is currently being interviewed," police said Tuesday night.

Previously: Couple Dumps Kid At SF Zoo Then Takes Off

A toddler was hospitalized and a woman arrested this week, after she allegedly fed meth to the child as he played in a popular Berkeley Park.

The strange and disturbing saga began Monday at around 3:31 p.m., when a woman later identified as 36-year-old Sayyadina Thomas allegedly approached a 2-year-old at Berkeley's People's Park as he played with his nanny, KRON 4 reports.

As the child climbed on a play structure, Thomas allegedly grabbed him and shoved something into his mouth. The Daily Californian reports that the nanny immediately checked his mouth, but found nothing. She called the University of California Police Department, which responded to the scene.

As police detained Thomas for a psychiatric evaluation, paramedics transported the child to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, NBC Bay Area reports. While speaking with police,Thomas said that she gave the child meth. An evaluation at the hospital confirmed that the child had indeed consumed methamphetamine. He was promptly treated, and is expected to make a full recovery.

"He was playing with the nanny in the play yard," a witness to the incident told NBC. "She just walked up to him a grabbed him, and she stuck her hands in his mouth."

ABC 7 reports that Thomas is well-known to park denizens, with one saying that "She's not a very good person. She steals everyone's stuff. She runs around talking to herself. She's crazy."

"Police also know Thomas, who they say lives in the park, alone," ABC 7 reports. "She's been busted for trespassing, indecent exposure, and probation violations."

And this time she faces charges of attempted murder, police say. According to ABC 7, she is expected to be arraigned Wednesday, and remains in police custody.

An arrest has been made in a series of voicemailed bomb threats to a Civic Center-area school, and it turns out that the calls were coming from (figuratively) inside the house.

You likely recall the evacuation and shelter-in-place ordered for Fell Street between Polk Street and Van Ness Avenue last Tuesday. The cause, police said at the time, was a bomb threat left on the voice mail of the LePort Montessori School, located at 50 Fell Street. Though officers with the San Francisco Police Department searched the area, no explosives were found.

According to a press release sent by the SFPD this morning, May 16 was not the first bomb threat the school had received. On May 8, police say, the school had received a similar message...but, obviously, never blew up.

Now SFPD's Special Investigations Division says they've identified the person responsible for the voicemails as 22-year-old South San Francisco resident Pablo Munoz, who is employed at the school in question as an assistant teacher.

He was arrested at the school "without incident" on Friday, police say today, and was booked into San Francisco County Jail on two counts of felony threats and two counts of misdemeanor false reporting of a bomb. According to a spokesperson with the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, he has since been released on bail.

Previously: Evacuation, Shelter In Place After Bomb Threat At San Francisco School

Get ready to forward this article to your mom to remind her that you weren't that bad as a teenager.

According to CBS 5, a 14-year-old boy was arrested in Rohnert Park (aka: RoPo) after stealing a car from a Santa Rosa driveway in the wee hours of the morning Friday and driving around with the headlights off and two teenaged passengers. If Hollywood films are any indication, one of those teen passengers was egging the driver on while the other one was nervously pleading, "C'mon guys. Let's just go home."

When the car, which the Press Democrat reports as being a 2007 Jeep Compass, was spotted by RoPo police who attempted to pull the boys over, a chase led to the car reaching speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.

Sweet Jesus.

After side-swiping another vehicle and hopping a median, the stolen car suffered two flat tires and stopped at the intersection of Hearn Avenue and Dowd Drive in south Santa Rosa. All of these details come to us from the Department of Public Safety, which is not so much angry as they are disappointed.

The young driver was found to have 10 no-bail arrest warrants and was booked into Sonoma County's juvenile hall for felony evading and possession of a stolen vehicle — oh, and also those warrants. The cops probably wanted to talk to him about those warrants.

Related: Teens Ransack Abandoned Marin Mansion, Throw Massive Party, Steal a Picasso

Dear Rain,

People say that it's hard to raise a kid in SF, but you grew up here and you seemed to turn out OK! Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to raise kids in San Francisco?

Signed,
Potential Parent of a Native San Franciscan

Dear PPOASF,

I've been sitting on this question for while, thinking, since I don't have kids, and the city has changed a lot since I actually was one, that I couldn't really offer much advice on the subject.

And then last week, Donald Trump was elected president.

After the sobbing and anxiety attacks subsided on Wednesday morning, I started to become very relieved that I had grown up in a cultural bubble that turned me into a person that heard what Trump was saying, and voted against it.

My elementary school was in the middle of the Castro district. At the time it was called Douglas Elementary School, but it's now known as the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. (That an elementary school is named after Harvey Milk is just another of many reasons why I love living here.)

I was in the third grade when Harvey Milk and George Moscone were assassinated. That afternoon they gathered the whole school into the cafeteria, and eventually sent us home early. I knew someone had been shot, but didn't really understand why that meant we should all go home. So my eight-year-old brain figured it was because the shooter was still on the loose and may head over to the school to kill us all. Needless to say, lots of crying happened.

There was much unrest in the Castro after that, but there were also peaceful protests. One morning, as my friends and I were in the schoolyard for recess, we saw some men walking down the hill carrying signs. We yelled out to them, wanting to know what was written on them, so they walked over to show us. I don't remember what the signs said, but I do know they told us they were going to be used in a march for equality, and by the end of that conversation my young friends and I were chanting, "Gays have rights! Gays have rights! Gays have rights!" in the middle of the schoolyard.

I will forever be thankful that I grew up in a city where something like that could happen.

Last week a friend from the East Bay who is a parent to a five-year-old boy told me she had begun to question bringing a child into this seemingly fucked up world. I told her to never, ever question that, and then I quoted Whitney Houston, because it's what I do.

My point was, she can raise her kid to be the change we need, and she's lucky to be living in an area where that's encouraged, where kids can not only chant "Gays have rights!" in a schoolyard, but also BE the person they know themselves to be — where they might be surrounded by people who don't look like them, but still know that they should treat everyone with respect. Parents need to take heart in the fact they they live in an area of the country whose majority of citizens did NOT vote to give a hate-monger the highest position of power in the land.

I know San Francisco's public school system isn't the best. I know it can be difficult seeing your children witness homelessness (and worse) on the city's streets. I know it can be harder and harder to even afford to live here at all, let alone with kids. I know this city is far from perfect.

So yes, raising kids in San Francisco can be a tremendous challenge. But it's also one of the best things you could do for them.

Rain Jokinen was born and raised in San Francisco and, miraculously, still calls the city home. Her future plans include becoming a millionaire, buying a condo complex, and then tearing it down to replace it with a dive bar. You can ask this native San Franciscan your questions here.

OMG, my heart is exploding right now. Dad of the year just passed out candy to everyone on the flight so his 3 year old could trick or treat pic.twitter.com/vfsAcYNrhr

— Stephanie Kahan (@stephaniekahan) November 1, 2016

I'm still mad about a bout with pneumonia that kept me from trick-or-treating at age four! But one dad saved his country-crossing daughter from my 41 years (and counting) of resentment, by making his daughter a Halloween surprise aboard a plane bound for San Francisco.

The Boston Globe reports that a man handed travelers on a Virgin America flight to SFO treats with a small note attached as they boarded at Boston's Logan International Airport

"My three-year-old daughter, Molly, was bummed that she wouldn’t be able to go trick-or-treating this year due to this flight... so I decided to bring trick-or-treating to her,” the note read, in orange and green type formatted to look like a pumpkin.

“If you are willing, when my little donut comes down the aisle, please drop this in her basket. You’ll be making her Halloween! If you’re unwilling, no worries, just pass the treat back to me. Thanks so much!”

According to passenger Stephanie Kahan, whose tweet you see above, the little doughnut-clad girl then "politely walked up to passengers, said 'trick-or-treat,' and collected her candy for Halloween as the plane made its way to California," the Globe reports.

When Kahan told that dad that even from the air, her tweet had been widely shared (it has nearly 93K retweets as of publication time), he asked that his name be kept private, but was "very humbled" that folks appreciated the makeshift Halloween he made for his kid.

“He was shocked at how much attention my post had received,” she told the Globe. “He said it was great to see that it made so many people happy, and funny that his daughter was blissfully unaware.”

Dear Rain,

I've lived in San Francisco for over 10 years, and every Halloween I buy a big bag of mini candy bars, and load a bowl up to keep next to my front door in the chance that a trick-or-treater may show up.

None ever have.

Disregarding how pathetic it is that I still pretend those mini candy bars are for anyone but me, I really do want to know why I've never seen a trick-or-treater. True, I live in an apartment building, so maybe kids have tried to get in, but I can assure you my buzzer has never rung!

Is trick-or-treating even a thing San Francisco kids do? Did you trick or treat as a kid? If so, where did you go?

Signed,
Save Me From This Candy

Dear SMFTC,

You're not the only person wondering about this! Though a certain website has regularly claimed that SF is the best city in the country for trick-or-treating (though we slipped to second this year), as Jay said in 2014, "trick-or-treaters are about as rare a sight in most places around town as koalas."

When I was a kid, I was an avid trick-or-treater, way past the age where it would be considered appropriate. (I think I finally stopped about sophomore year in high school.) I lived in the Mission, in a Victorian flat, until about 1980, and there were plenty of similarly-sized houses to visit in our neighborhood. But when we moved to an apartment on Potrero Hill, it became a little trickier. We'd usually pass by the bigger apartment buildings and stick to two-story flats or single family homes.

When I got a little older, (again, too old to be trick-or-treating), friends and I would take the bus out to St. Francis Wood, or other "rich" neighborhoods, under the impression that the one percenters would be giving out better candy than they were in our hoods. But the truth is, they didn't! Our bags weren't filled with full size candy bars by the end of the night, just your usual "fun sized" treats, and way more Sweettarts than anyone would ever really want.

I've lived in the same apartment building for over 20 years, and I, too, have never had any trick-or-treating kids wander the halls, knocking on doors. The closest I ever got was some teenagers dressed in black who somehow got inside the building, and pounded on doors demanding candy, but I don't think anyone was dumb enough to fall for that. I know I wasn't, and kept my lights off and door firmly closed.

I live on Nob Hill, in an area that is primarily apartment buildings, which is always tough for trick-or-treating. But there was a time, about 15 years ago, when our local store, Le Beau, would help put together a neighborhood map of all the homes that would be welcoming visits on Halloween night. I took a cousin, who also lived in the neighborhood, trick-or-treating using that map, and we did that for at least two Halloweens. It was a great idea, but they stopped doing it a number of years ago. I guess all the kids grew up and none took their place?

I don't have kids myself, but I imagine the same holds true now. Apartment buildings are just kind of intimidating. A house will usually have a jack o'lantern and decorations outside, letting you know it's OK to ring that doorbell, while an apartment building just seems to promise a lot of rejection.

But, you could always tape a sign outside your building that says "Kids Welcome! Candy inside!" Problem is, you might get a visit from the SFPD SVU squad before you saw an actual trick-or-treater.

Any parents want to clue us into how you handle trick-or-treating if you live in a predominantly apartment building-filled area? Do you take the kids elsewhere? Arrange some kind of neighborhood crawl? Or withhold candy altogether in favor of kale chips and carob bars?

Rain Jokinen was born and raised in San Francisco and, miraculously, still calls the city home. Her future plans include becoming a millionaire, buying a condo complex, and then tearing it down to replace it with a dive bar. You can ask this native San Franciscan your questions here.