At first, before reading this story, we were ready to shake our finger at the Vespa rider in question. Lord knows we worry about you kids. But it seems she wasn't at fault. You see, last night a 24-year-old San Francisco woman was put in the hospital with life-threatening injuries while riding a Vespa on South Van Ness Avenue. It seems that "a 1994 Honda Accord, which was traveling southbound, tried to make a......

While Oakland received tons of press over the weekend for its recent spate of murder, this Mission murder, which happened near 25th and South Van Ness (be careful, Phone Booth patrons!), went all but unnoticed. Around 6:45 p.m. last Friday, two men approached 21-year-old Jose Reynoso and shot him in the head and chest. He was taken to SF General Hospital where he died the following day. Police have "sketchy descriptions of the killers"......

Attention criminals: as of this week, your swashbuckling days of villainy and misbegotten Muni rides have become easy and breezy. Muni has "decriminalized" citations, which means that you won't have to go to court to deal with them. Now, you can contest or pay them through the Customer Service Center at 11 South Van Ness, just like parking tickets. You can also deal with citations via phone, or mail; and allegedly you can pay......

It's the new year so it's a new Ask a Muni Security Guy question. This one was inspired by seeing some lady eat chinese food on BART while also reading a magazine.... How do you handle food on MUNI? Technically it's not allowed but everyone kind of does it....

Alas. We hit the 100th murder mark over the weekend. And this big 1-0-0, as you know, is not a cause for celebration. Early Saturday morning at around 5 a.m., Jose Alberto Chel Camara, 21, and Jaiber Nah Carballo, 20 were shot and killed on 18th Street and South Van Ness. (The assailants were "described as two men in their 20s, but it was unclear whether one or both were the shooters" and no......

Every year at Thanksgiving, you're bound to forget one or two critical items. A shallot, cooking twine, mushrooms, Ketel One -- something will slip your mind and you run the risk of having your Thanksgiving dinner collapse in on itself. And then you've ruined everything. Everything! But who can we prevent such yellow wallpapered hysteria? This is where you come in: do you know of any grocery stores that stay open late on Thanksgiving......

We were riding the M line yesterday, thumbing through the Guardian's 41st anniversary special, when G.W. Schultz's lead for the his anti-Muni-privatization article caught our eye: There's a money room in the basement of 1 South Van Ness, where the Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates Muni, is headquartered. Workers literally count by hand bags of cash and coins taken in as fares from passengers throughout the day. After we finished bashing our heads against......

Film School, Ali Liebgott, Facing East, Xocolate Bar...

From the SFist Tips line: yet another daytime shooting yesterday, this time at 23rd and South Van Ness around 1:45 p.m, by the post office, and fatal. In a particularly brazen act, the shooters then drove by the SFPD Ingleside Station to drop off the body about an hour and a half later. You'll all be pleased to hear that the cops did at least manage to catch the person driving the car. Those activists......

The SFPD arrested the guy who murdered the anti-crime activist in the Haight, Joe Konopka, in an S&M session gone wrong. They believe Konopka, who was found handcuffed, choked to death on plastic covering his face. After Konopka died, the murderer took his laptop, jewelry, and cell phone before fleeing the scene. Does anyone know what happened at 16th and South Van Ness Wednesday night? We walked by there around 9 p.m. and there were......

Ever misplaced a grocery or to-do list? Your lost note could appear in Lost and Found in the Mission, a play based on true stories salvaged from scraps of papers found around the Mission District. The production, by Boathouse & Co., includes songs, dancing, beat-boxing and mass hallucinations. Tickets are available on a sliding scale ($15-$25), here, show starts at 8pm. Mama Calizo's Voice Factory in the Jon Sims Center for Performing Arts, 1519......

A gay African-American high school English teacher at the private Urban School is recovering from three stab wounds he received a few weeks ago while eating at the Taqueria Cancun down near Mission and 29th Street. A woman came into the taqueria and started yelling racial and anti-gay slurs at people in the restaurant, and when the teacher and his friends tried to get away from her, she attacked him with the knife. The SFPD......

Man, we can't believe Team Newsom scheduled Third Fake Question Time at the last minute like that -- your Political Junkie is out on vacation so we can't make it to the Cesar Chavez Elementary School on Monday the 26th at 6 p.m. to discuss health care with the residents of District 9. (825 Shotwell (between South Van Ness and Folsom, cross street 22nd). Man, and we were hoping to see Han Shin and......

As the political season starts to heat up, there's so many bloggers monitoring politicians' activities that we're thinking we need to start a new column, the _____Watch. There's so many people needing to be assessed these days! So we start off with local progressive Internet guerrillas GavinWatch. Welcome back! After their mysterious disappearance, they've changed all their old passwords, reuploaded all their old clips -- and they're ready to start watching Gavin Newsom again! (GavinWatch......

If you think riding Muni is confusing and unpredictable, just imagine how tricky it is for folks with disabilities. And that's why the Muni Accessibility Advisory Committee will meet this Thursday, March 15, from 1pm to 3pm in the Mission Conference Room #3075, on 3rd Floor of the MTA offices at One South Van Ness. The goal of the meeting: to set some goals. The MAAC agenda is flexible and open to suggestion --......

An anonymous, well-placed source forwarded a memo along to us -- it's about a month old now, but its humor is of a special timeless breed: that of the toilet. "It has come to our attention that the restroom hygiene of some tenants is less than stellar," begins the memo, with the subject "RESTROOM MANNERS." Apparently, some folks at the MTA offices at 1 South Van Ness have been wadding up some heavy paper......

C'mon, Chris -- we know you're excited you won reelection, but really, can't you take this sign down now? (at the intersection of South Van Ness and Mission, picture taken today.) Doesn't city law (sec. 184.57(e)) require that all signs on city poles be taken down ten days after the election? Don't make us write Chronicle Watch! Another picture after the jump.......

Like us, you may have been inundated over the holiday weekend with stories of relatives' vacations and medical maladies or the accomplishments of the person sitting next to you on the plane's prodigious offspring. Tonight, we are looking forward to more interesting narratives: At Femina Potens, (465 South Van Ness @ 16th St) Sarah-Katherine Lewis reads from Indecent: How I Fake It and Make It as a Girl for Hire, a sex-worker memoir. Lewis......

She's like those paparazzi motorcyclists who killed Princess Di -- a drag-racing 18-year-old in a Mustang accidentally killed two members of the Tongan royal family on 101 in Menlo Park and their driver when she accidentally sideswiped their car Wednesday night. The teen was trying to pass them on the right, at speeds of around 80-100 mph, when she hit them, causing their SUV to roll over several times (all three victims were wearing seat......

Varnish Fine Art (77 Natoma between 1st and 2nd Streets) Re: Assembled June 6 through July 15, Tuesdays through Fridays from 11a.m. to 11p.m., Saturdays from 1-5. Opening reception June 8 from 7-11 p.m. Nemo Gould's kinetic metal & found object sculpture, Dan Romo's acrid and whimsical dioramas and Barry Kite's socio-political wall work come together in a single show built on the idea of reassembled motifs. In keeping with Varnish's reputation for sculpture-centric shows,......

If you think the Ma v. Ja race is content-free, you should try the State Senate District 8 race between Leland Yee and Mike Nevin. Yawn, unless you like trying to figure out the byzantine nature of state politics personal relationships. (i.e., why didn't Gavin Newsom endorse San Franciscan Yee over San Mateo County's Nevin? Does it have something to do with the mysterious feud between Fiona and Leland?) However, it looks like Yee's got......

There's so many 1906 earthquake related events, we've gotta do a third post rounding up your tourism options! Keep sending those events on in! Previous posts here and here. Additional events listings here, and here's the official San Francisco Rising website too, if you want it. The Exploratorium's got a monthlong series of events about the science of earthquake. You may have missed the restaging of San Francisco in jello by Liz Hickok, but......

While we’ve been stuck inside our stuffy apartment in the Tenderloin, nursing a nasty cough amid empty tissue boxes and cartons of Chunky Monkey (hey, we have a very sore throat), we’ve started to feel a touch of the cabin fever. Despite our frail and sickly condition, we’re determined to get a little fresh air and check out the following shows starting tonight. We hope to see you there, just don’t stand too close.......

Nikki Richesin, the editor of the The May Queen, started compiling this book of essays on "the eve of the thirtieth birthday." Given that the tagline of the book is "Women on life, love, work, and pulling it all together in your 30s", that piece of data seemed ironic -- we're pretty sure we spent the eve of our thirtieth birthday watching "Knight Rider". Thanks for making us feel like even MORE of a screwup,......

In our continuing search for cool stuff to buy for holiday gifts, we can't wait to hit Root Division's Holiday Art Show and Sale. Head over to Root Division (3175 17th at South Van Ness) Saturday any time between 11a.m. to 11p.m. to pick up works from local emerging artists -- perfect fodder for gifts, or to keep! From 6 to 11 p.m. there'll be a reception complete with DJ Carrie B, so if......

The San Francisco 3 Minute Film Festival goes down this Saturday at Root Division (17th and South VanNess) with doors opening at 7:00. Being a big believer in the tried and tested theory that no matter how awful something is, anyone can put up with it for 3 minutes, we here at SFist will definitely be checking it out. After all, the next Michael Bay has to come from somewhere, right? Admission will be......

Well, okay, this isn't really a crime movie, but if an octopus really did attack San Francisco, heck yeah it would make the Blotter! The cops think a robbery in the Richmond's Ocean King restaurant on Tuesday (glad Gourmet de l'Ouest wasn't there when it happened!) may be linked to a robbery in Oakland at the Korean Bistro. Both restaurants were hit by a multiethnic trio of robbers (two African-American, one speaking with an obvious Vietnamese accent). Despite what you see in the movies, multiracial gangs are actually fairly rare, which made the cops think the robberies were linked. We can't decide if it's depressing, typical, or a good sign that criminals can't transcend race. The gun battle on Tuesday at 18th and South Van Ness outside a tire-rim store, which injured four people (one of whom was a bystander), has been traced back to two Western Addition gangs whose members happened to cross paths outside their usual area. The Mission gang force is annoyed. "In the Mission District we have problems with our own gangs. We don't need gangs from other areas coming to visit us," he told the Ex. And Oakland's coming back strong in the 2005 murder count, after a surge forward by perennial second-placer San Francisco, with three killings yesterday and two today. Oakland's total is now at 13 murders for 2005, and San Francisco is at 16 as of last week. Hey, there's a Blotter special today too -- since you've asked, there's a list of all the pictures we've used as Blotter illustrations since we started, after the jump....

http://www.bingwalker.com/archives/san_francisco/index.html Cancun...

Bay Area crime roundup...