Following up on our story yesterday on a $100 security deposit that “all picnics” (Rec and Park's words, not mine) in Dolores Park must pay, comes word from Mission Local that Recreation and Park's definition of a “picnic” is limited to groups of 25 people or more using a picnic table.  According the Department spokesman Elton Pon and Mission Local:

Implementation was a matter 0f adding a $100 refundable deposit to the permit fees they normally charge to secure one of the seven large picnic areas in Dolores Park. The deposit, which is a check that is returned after the picnic, has almost always been refunded, according to Pon.

The permit fees go like this: Picnics with 25-50 people pay $27 fee, parties of 50-101 people pay $55 and parties of 101 to 200 pay $81. This is consistent with the fees the City has been charging for picnic permits for decades, Pon Said.

Enforcement is based on complaints from neighbors, or if a dispute arises on who has the rights to what space. Says Pon: SF Park and Rec doesn’t have the staff to check up on every large picnic.

No doubt it's fantastic news that Rec. & Park is now specifying exactly what their policy around picnic permits is (we do hope that they update their website soon so it's readily available).  And I sincerely doubt anyone here will argue that charging a fee to use picnic tables is wrong (after all, Golden Gate Park requires the fee, as do most state and national parks, plus you and 24-or-less friends can just plop down on the grass for free).  However, to institute a parental security deposit still strikes me as out of bounds for the department.  It's not the Park Department's role to determine if one was “behaving” while eating sandwiches; we already have a perfectly capable police department to ticket picnickers for littering, drinking and other illegal nonsense.  Moreover, the Department still doesn't appear (going off the information on Rec. & Park's website) to require a similar deposit for Golden Gate Park, which brings up the question, why did they single out Dolores?