Oct 31, 2007 6:15 am US/Pacific
San Francisco Cancels Famed Halloween Party
Last Year's Shooting Forced City Officials To Shut Down Street Party
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS) ―
Something frightful and spooky is brewing in San Francisco's Castro District, traditionally home to the largest Halloween happening in the Bay Area.
After nine people were shot at last year's street party, San Francisco city officials have put the kibosh on the annual event. They are warning the tens of thousands of people who flock to the neighborhood every Oct. 31 to go elsewhere or stay home Wednesday night.
The scary prospect for the city is that no one knows whether the Castro will be the ghost town officials want, or an impromptu gathering of costumed hordes who are all dressed up with no place to go.
City officials have tried to advise would-be revelers through fliers, public service announcements and juvenile probation officers that they won't find many treats in the Castro this Halloween. What they will find are 600 extra police officers, shuttered restaurants, stepped up sobriety checks and no Muni or BART bus and train service after 8:30 p.m.
But whether that will affect the plans of revelers is yet to be seen.
"This is really a public safety decision," said Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the Castro district and spent the better part of a year trying to arrange an alternative city-sanctioned gathering. "I'm disappointed my message is one of, 'Please don't come.'"
The festivities started decades ago as a homegrown celebration for San Francisco's gay and lesbian community.
In recent years, though, Halloween has drawn a spookier element to the once-spontaneous event. In 2002, five people were stabbed. Three years ago, someone wandered the crowds wielding a chain saw.
Last year, nine revelers were shot when a confrontation between two groups of young people erupted into gunfire, despite ramped-up security at the event. No one has been arrested in the shooting.
"It's absolutely eerie when you are looking around seeing people, most of them not in costume, looking each other in the eye with suspicion," said Castro resident Betty Sullivan, who narrowly missed getting caught in the gunfire last year when she went out with her adult daughter and son-in-law.
"Here I am trying to walk around in my own neighborhood with this huge predominance of non-Castro people. It felt so strange," said Sullivan, who runs a Web site that publicizes Castro-area events and businesses.
Sullivan said she is anxious enough about what will transpire this year that she doesn't even plan to watch from her front stoop. On Tuesday, she could hear loudspeakers and sirens, part of the city's emergency notification system, being tested from her home.
"Everybody I've talked to is pretty much on the same page I am, which is it needed not to happen," she said. "I'm like, shut it down. I don't even want to pretend it's going to be OK."
The uncertainty has prompted city agencies to take a "belt and suspenders" approach to policing the event, said Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom.
People are both being encouraged to go elsewhere a Web site financed by the city to let people know the party was called off lists dozens of events in other parts of the Bay Area and warned only to come if interacting with police is their idea of a good time, Ballard said.
"The residents of the Castro are fed up with having a large, regional party in the Castro, and frankly anyone who thinks it's a good idea to have a large, regional event in the Castro on a weeknight needs to have their head examined," he said.
To reinforce that the welcome mat has been officially rolled up, the city arranged to have probation officers throughout the area tell their young clients that going into San Francisco will be considered a probation violation.
Some business owners were angry when the city asked them to close early on Halloween night, but 34 bars, restaurants and stores that sell liquor have since agreed, according to Dufty. A few others are looking to pick up the slack, however.
Dufty said he hopes to help organize a pub crawl or another event to make up for the money lost by neighborhood businesses.
"There will be people who come to see what's happening, but when they realize the restaurants and bars are almost universally closed, I think they will go home," he said.
Police are hoping for a peaceful night, but are also preparing for the worst.
"We're going to have barricades that are set aside in the event they need to be used to control crowds and we'll have a command post out there," said SFPD Sgt. Steve Manina.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
