The Dew Tour event that has been taking up a lot of space at Civic Center this week has finally seen some sick airborne action today, but not before it was harshly criticized by a member of the city's Board of Supervisors.
If you guessed Supervisor Eric "Happy Meal Ban Guy" Mar was the one to balk at the extreme sporting event, you would be incorrect. The District 1 incumbent may be trying to green-up your corner store, but he was mum on the yellow #5 outside of City Hall at this week's meeting. Instead, Supervisor John Avalos stepped up to criticize the "inordinate amount of time" the event, and other recent events like it, has shut down Civic Center Plaza while crews erect all those sweet jumps and vert ramps.
In addition to the weeks of prep, there's also the awkward issue of putting a Mountain Dew-sponsored event across the street from a City Hall that might actually be allergic to high fructose corn syrup. The city put all those anti-childhood obesity PSAs up on Muni, after all, but those will never be as awesome as Dew-fueled halfpipe sessions downtown. So nobody should ever come to San Francisco and do anything awesome in the name of soda, basically.
[Note: Rec & Parks Director Phil Ginsburg later defended the event, for which the city received $311,000 to rent out the plaza for 17 days, saying, "There are a lot of sponsors at this event. Every major event has corporate sponsors... We don't believe in kids drinking soda. This event promotes healthy activity."]
Finally, Avalos said his office has received reports that the workers who actually built all that extreme playground equipment aren't being paid adequate wages. (Which is really more in Avalos' progressive area of expertise, so maybe he should have just led off with that. It would be preferable to having the Big Soda talk again.) Avalos said he has his people looking into the matter, so if that turns out to be true it will be disappointing for those promises that sponsored events like this bring in local jobs at fair wages. Not to mention the cheapskate contractors and the event organizers that hired them.
As we've mentioned the event is free to the public and is also sponsored by Toyota, makers of San Francisco's favorite hybrid vehicle. Lil' Wayne is scheduled to appear Saturday at 10:30 a.m., which seems far too early for Lil' Wayne. Below: video of Avalos from Tuesday's Supervisors Meeting. Below that: Lil' Wayne's video for "A Milli" [Dirty Version]
Related: The last time Rec & Parks teamed up (or sold out to) a major soda company, they got a $250,000 donation from Coca-Cola and Gavin Newsom rode a skateboard.
