Almost anything goes at Dolores Park, whose northern half has been closed since last March for $20 million in renovations. But this time, literal lines were crossed. Nighttime ne'er-do-wells breached fences and ignored warning signs to cause what San Francisco Recreation & Park Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg told KTVU amounts to $100,000 in damage.
In a weekend night of debauchery, a group of vandals entered the cordoned-off renovation zone. At some point they hot-wired a construction cart, with which they did donuts on the newly sodded field, damaging a recently installed irrigation system in the process. The intruders also tagged a cement roof on a new storage facility and, in a particularly brazen display, lit a campfire in a corner of that facility, leaving behind chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers.
Police have made two arrests in relation to the vandalism and have now asked that contractors take down the fence covers that blind officers to nighttime park intruders.
"I'm infuriated, I'm angry," Ginsburg told KTVU, calling the perpetrators "idiots." In all likelihood, the s'mores bandits have just compounded delays to the reopening of the park section, already pushed back by four months to April because of other complications. While the extent of the vandalism is addressed, a return to so-called park sections of Hipster Hill and Fixie Flats will have to wait.
Previously: Dolores Park Construction Gets A Four-Month Delay