The encroachment of Oakland-style sideshows in San Francisco — particularly on warm-weather weekends — continues, and there was one on Saturday night that was surprisingly close to Pacific Heights.

It's been a year of firsts when it comes to sideshows in San Francisco, including what we think was a first-of-its-kind sideshow at Castro and Market streets in mid-March. And on Saturday, dozens if not a hundred or so spectators gathered at the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Pine Street, where cars did donuts and fireworks were shot off for an unclear span of time.

A big rig truck coming down Van Ness was reportedly allowed to get through, however spectators reportedly tried to block a Muni bus trying to pass.

Multiple posts on social media noted the seemingly lame response by the SFPD — though enough SFPD SUVs ultimately showed up and managed to disperse the crowd.

As any Oakland officer will tell you, it isn't particularly worth it to police to get aggressive with sideshow participants, particularly when they are sometimes armed and/or intoxicated.

District 11 supervisor candidate Jose Morales posted to X that the police response was "inadequate," and "San Francisco must send a clear message to criminals that this city is not a haven for unlawful activities."

There were multiple sideshows, occurring just about every weekend, in the East Bay and on the Peninsula in April. One sideshow that might have been a roving group that had been moving up the Peninsula, even blocked the eastbound lanes of the Bay Bridge for at least 20 minutes around 3 am on April 7.

Sideshow activity has been spilling into SF since the early pandemic, which prompted Supervisor Rafael Mandelman to propose new crackdown legislation last year. Other Bay Area cities, including San Jose, have enacted ordinances that allow for the ticketing of sideshow spectators as well as direct participants, though it's not clear whether such legislation has done much in the way of deterrence.

This was also not the first sideshow to happen on Van Ness Avenue — there was one documented sideshow there in September 2022, just a couple of blocks from Saturday's.

Previously: SF Supervisor Proposes Novel Method to Crack Down on Sideshows: Drones