It's Time For the Media to Stop Telling People to Hate Bay to Breakers

This year's Bay to Breakers is over, and while it was a hella good time like years past, the campaign against the event noticably took its toll:

Photo by Ben Thornton

Perhaps it was the weather forecast, perhaps it was AEG (the race promoter) telling us there would be “zero tolerance” for party-positive San Franciscans to enjoy the event, perhaps it was SFPD promising to bust heads, but the number of spectators was visibly down.  While some neighbors are certainly celebrating this as an achievement, it was just a predictable outcome based on years of negative press that is eroding away the character of the race.

It's funny, most of the San Francisco natives and Bay to Breakers haters I talk to admit to having never attended the race in any fashion.  Never ran it.  Never got drunk and walked it.  Never watched it from afar.  So why do they hate it?  How can they hate it?  Do they hate the idea of a footrace in which the majority of participants are in costume?  No. Do they hate drinking?  Certainly not.  From what I gather, people hate this event because they are told to hate it.  The media claims alcohol over-consumption is on the rise, but only offer up subjective analysis from 40-year-old NIMBY neighbors, never facts.  The promoters (and neighbors) cry about the 30 tons of trash left behind the 2010 edition of the race, yet the promoters don't line the streets with trashcans—a practice found at almost every other large event in the City.  We're told urination is a problem, bloggers find a few pics to illustrate the story, but once again, we're only given the perspective of a few neighbors, never facts (nevermind the fact the the media doesn't routinely feature pictures of the crackheads that pee of these very streets on a daily basis).

The press buys the lines given to them by AEG and a few neighbors without applying any sort of critical thinking to the issues.  Just yesterday, The Bay Citizen ran a hit piece about the event:

Along the upward incline of Hayes, multiple street parties ruled. DJs presided from stoops and second-floor windows while alcohol flowed freely, without much police enforcement.

There was also a sense, expressed even among some of the most party-hearty residents, that this was a San Francisco event that — like so many of the city's other street fairs — may have grown too popular for its own good, losing its local credibility in the process.

Matt [last name redacted], 17, and Sophia [last name redacted], 17, were among 12 seniors from Redwood High School in Larkspur who came into the city straight from their prom after-party Saturday night. They stopped to dance in front of a house party serving Jello shots on the 800 block of Hayes.

“This year is the best,” Matt said while he danced next to Sophia to Get Low, the 2003 hit by Lil Jon.

Were they concerned about police enforcing the alcohol ban?

“This year is the best because they have all these laws but everyone's been breaking the laws,” Matt said, before asking a reporter for Jello shots. (He had none.)

Nearby, Kayta George, a 51-year old native of the Fillmore district, stood on a stoop to sneer at the mass of sweaty, scantily-clad, barely post-adolescent bodies writhing below.

“This is the bridge-and-tunnel, under-18 crowd,” said George. “These are just teens in costumes. Where did all the San Franciscans go?”

Really?  Excusing the fact The Bay Citizen printed the full name of minors who are obviously breaking the law, they're using a single pair of idiots to paint the entire event as an out-of-control drunkfest fit for children.  Where did all the San Franciscans go?  The answer is obvious, they stayed home because of bullshit reporting making the event sound like unadulterated mayhem.  Not once did they quote people living along the route who look forward to the event every year (PROTIP: ask someone under the age of 35 in the newsroom for the name of a B2B neighbor who loves the event, odds are if they have more than 5 friends, they probably know one), never do they bother to get the perspective of older neighbors who love the event, never once do they bother to put the NIMBY bullshit in check.

We learned from the campaign for Sit-Lie that the unchecked rhetoric published by the press ended up harming Haight Street businesses.  Similarly, if the press keeps publishing bullshit about how a few minors and Marin residents crash the party and puke everywhere without explaining that they are in the very small minority of participants, why would people expect real racers and anyone but frat boys to show up?  The media is cooking up a controversy where there is none and giving a microphone to the poor souls who own property across from Alamo Square about the inconvenience of having to hose off their stoop once a year—a small price to pay for, arguably, living in one of the greatest cities in the world.  The upside is that reactionary columnists have something to fight for, the downside is that San Francisco is being stripped of one of its finest mornings.

The truth of the matter is that Bay to Breakers is one of the events that define San Francisco as the fun and creative city that it is.  Take away Bay to Breakers, BYO Big Wheel, Hunky Jesus, SantaCon, the street faires, and all other events of the like and this city instantly becomes a whole lot more boring.  Where did all the San Franciscans go?  We were up at 6:30am taking the 22 to Hayes St., drank a 12 pack of the cheapest generic beer on the shelf, waited in line for the portapotties with all the other San Franciscans, made a point of finding one of the six trashcans along the route to dispose of our trash, walked back to our house from Golden Gate Park, ate a few tacos, and fell asleep on our couch while watching Netflix.  C.W. Nevius calls it chaos and mayhem, I call it just another day in San Francisco.

Comments (20)

My under-40ish top five reasons for disliking B2B:
amateur hour-style hazing ritual that involves making out with whatever’s wearing American Apparel sports socks; it’s used as an excuse to get shitfaced on bad beer and puke on doorsteps adjacent to the panhandle (no one did this year, on mine at least); over-dependence on tired costuming (feather boas/furry jackets); my landlady’s mother scavenges cans and puts them in our laundry room; and ultimately, like everyone else, I dislike obnoxious drunk people when I myself am not even marginally intoxicated.

So that’s basically it, in a highly personal nutshell. I don’t want to see people not having a good time, and I actually do like that people use B2B as an excuse to get creative and make a positive change in their environment (good excuse to break out the Bedazzler and some hot glue). Problems arise when there’s general disrespect of other neighborhoods and their inhabitants.

My father taught me how to be a reasonable drunk, so I got lucky. Hope I’m not opening a can of worms, and hope I’m not automatically going to be enrolled in early AARP membership for my rant. And the Bay Citizen should figure out that it’s not cool to print the names of kids who’re drinking.

Right on, Kevin. You said exactly what I’ve been thinking… although I do have to take issue with your equating drinking with being “party-positive.” I’m a very party-positive non-drinker. :) But seriously, if you choose to move into a place along the race route, presumably you made that decision because having some disruptive activity in your neighborhood ONE day a year isn’t that big of a deal. And if you don’t live on the race route, just stay away if it’s not your thing. I’ve never been to B2B and don’t really have an interest, but as you said, it’s one of those things that makes SF the fun and unique city we love and which a lot of people enjoy. Chill out, B2B haters!

It’s funny, most of the San Francisco natives and Bay to Breakers haters I talk to admit to having never attended the race in any fashion. Never ran it. Never got drunk and walked it. Never watched it from afar. So why do they hate it?

As a native, I think it’s partially because, well, we party a lot. B2B, Castro Halloween, Pride Weekend, St Pat’s Parade… we have plenty of opportunities to take to the streets and go nuts, most of which do NOT start at 7 goddamn AM.

Plus, having grown up at 25th & 34th Aves, by the time they got to me, they’d be plowed, but more likely they’d have wandered off to like, 540 Club, and then it wasn’t so much B2B I was joining up with, it was more of an amateur bar night in the early afternoon.

I weary of how SF says on the one hand we’re open minded and “tolerant” and people can do things etc and then on the other hand they want to kill off everything be it B2B, halloween, night clubs that people built stupid around, the Recycling Center and a small group of self appointed people seem to think they can shut things down because they say so. It’s bullshit, and I’m sick of it.

We want to have a nice non commercial street fair in the Inner Sunset, but the cost and the tons of paperwork you have to go through makes it really tough to do something that would actually be fun for all and not have a bunch of corporate booths dominating the event. Parks and Rec wants to charge admission to Golden Gate Park someday (I’m sure Phil Ginsburg would explode with joy if that happened) and in the end, we’re killing the reasons people moved here. If people want Suburbia By The Sea, move to San Diego.

Absolutely correct: the media needs divisiveness to create ad revenue. Also correct that haters usually hate things they’ve never experienced. That’s called prejudice and people who act this way are usually my grandpa.

But this year’s Bay to Breakers was absolutely the best-run, most enjoyable race held since the Summer of Love. Just enough ugly naked men, plenty of real runners and great costumes to make it San Francisco, and enough cops to keep people from completely behaving like animals which they tend to do by the end of the race, often on my front porch.

There’s still plenty of proof of that animal behavior in the park today, even after such a mellow, toned-down race. You’re welcome to stroll through and collect all the souvenirs you want.

Having lived in this city for 9.5 years, and having attended B2B for 4 consecutive years, I can say that I do not need the media to give me reasons to detest this tradition. For me, firsthand experience with tacky, sloppy drunks was enough for me to say, ‘No thanks.’

That said, as much as I have my reasons for giving the event one big eye-roll, I know there are plenty of people who enjoy it and think it’s a good use of their time to get drunk by 10am and wander aimlessly in their UnderArmor, tubesocks, and warm-up shorts on a normally benign Sunday. I take comfort in the idea that if I wanted to take part in the running of the fools, that option is afforded in this fair city.

living out in the avenues, i would wander into the park (after a leisurely breakfast) to meet up with friends who had started downtown. just hanging out and watching people go by, i was struck by the thought: anyone in any kind of recovery for substance abuse or compulsive behavior had no business being anywhere near B2B. the event’s last few years were total piss and puke fests.

areas off the pavement past 25th Ave. were getting trampled and trashed. the amount of castoffs and garbage was … insane. the situation was out of hand.

people seemed to be having a good time, so of course there are trade-offs; one person’s party is another person’s fricking mess. the broader point is that there was a pervasive selfishness. if you don’t live near the park or use it that far out, who cares if it’s trashed? if you gotta take a whiz (or worse) right now, why not take it wherever you like?

so yeah, a lot of people who may not have done B2B start to finish, or any part of it at all. that doesn’t matter – the impact on the neighborhoods was obvious, not some NIMBY conspiracy.

I have avoided b2b since moving to SF as I had read that it was a fratty puke-fest. This year I biked to the panhandle around noon to see what it was all about. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the participants and how well behaved everyone was. Not bad.

Actually, Bay To Breakers was a “party” that the residents of the City loved like Christmas for decades. In the past few years, it has become the parking lot of a Senor Frogs in Cancun. I, and many other longtime residents and natives, applaud the “party-dampening” measures taken this year. My childhood was spent watching the wonderful weirdo parade of Bay To Breakers from the steps of my mother’s Western Addition home. In the last three or so years, on those very same front steps, I have spent the morning after Bay To Breakers picking up plastic cups and empty bottles, hosing down puke and piss, and waking up blacked-out nineteen-year-old girls in neon bras and USF gym shorts while listening to shirtless Lacrosse majors who look like every dipshit on any VH1 reality show sing Drake songs from atop a trashcan. If future Bay To Breakers are as “party-unfriendly” as this year, hell, maybe San Franciscans can enjoy it again.

I don’t think that doubling the amount of porta-potties or trashcans would have a huge impact on the littering and urinating problem. The fact of the matter is that when people are drunk, they’re not going to reason not pissing on someone’s driveway or stoop, or look for a trashcan. I think residents should be allowed to shoo them away…why not throw water on them and throw their trash back at them?

Either you’ve never actually been drunk before or you’re a giant dick while trashed, because I know very few people who lack bladder control or common decency while drunk. It’s always been an access issue, not a selfishness problem. And I find it hard to believe that people today are more apt to urinate on someone’s home than generations past.

To compare this to Dolores Park, no one pees on the Muni tracks because they WANT to pee there… they do it because the bathroom lines are 20+ minutes long. When they increased the number of bathrooms by adding six portapotties, it appears to have had the effect of decreasing the amount of urine behind the park. Increased capacity = shorter lines = less public urination. This is not hard to understand.

Similarly, you have to literally hunt to find trashcans at b2b. At some point, it makes more sense to just dump your trash on the street where you know a street sweeper will pick it up, rather than spend an absurd amount of time looking for a trashcan. Don’t get me wrong, this is a standing issue in SF (I’ve never seen so few trashcans or benches on the sidewalk in a major city), but it’s particularly bad on b2b.

If the sponsors and organizers who take away millions of dollars from this event don’t provide enough bathrooms and trashcans, there is no way you can blame the people.
The organization is responsible for letting them and you down.
Your anger or judgements should be directed at AEG and Zazzle, not the people who come to take part in an amazing San Francisco tradition
As soon as B2B provides MORE than enough bathrooms and trashcans, and people don’t use them in significant numbers, THEN you can complain and accuse people of irresponsibility.

SF has way too many fair-weather events where priviliged people take the opportunity to infantilize themselves with alcohol then spew idiocy out of all orifices. i like the historical persepctive from posters that talk about what B2B should be or was - fun but creative.

now its just a bunch of dipshits in bad wigs

Everyone knows real San Franciscans go buck wild at AIDS Walk. 7/17/11 is gonna be OFF DA CHAAAIN!

Sorry, I can’t take a discussion of Bay to Breakers seriously, as Bay to Breakers is impossible to take seriously.

Kevin, good for you. I’ve watched the race a few times but ran it for the first time this year, after having lived here for 15. I met so many great San Franciscans while standing in line for my corral (one of them kindly shared a few safety pins with me because I had forgotten to bring it for my bib). As I was running behind a bunch of naked guys with their moneymaker flapping in the wind and passing by seven dudes dressed up as Elvis, I thought: I fucking love this town. I really wish we could do floats again, and now I wish B2B happened every month.

About the mayhem: it’s once a freaking year. And also, homeless people pee and poop every day a block away from me right on the side walk anyways.

Thanks for this, Kevin.
The B2B is just another example of something amazing and fun, a party for everyone who wants to join or watch, being created by free spirited, open-minded people. Which is a big part of what San Francisco is known for all over the world. It’s part of our proud heritage. People being creative and having fun. Open mindedness and acceptance of people and behaviors different than the ones we might have grown up with.
So the race got huge and fun and famous.
Now the pigs that “own” B2B are trying to clean it up in an effort to more effectively monetize it.
That’s all this is about. Making more money by advertising some dipshit company like Zazzle or some stupid fucking French bank (ING).
All the pissed off old and intolerant people are useful idiots in the War Against Fun and the rush to privatize and monetize EVERYTHING awesome that this city and it’s people inspire.
Let’s be clear about this:
If you don’t give people a place to take a leak or a place to deposit their garbage, you just lost all right to complain about trash on the streets and piss on trees and shrubs.
It’s useful to note also, that at the center of this bullshit tornado was Spokesliar Sam Singer, a Public Relations asshole who has his fingerprints all over numerous fucked up efforts to alternately deceive and rip off the good people of San Francisco.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-01-07/news/17152077_1_san-francisco-zoo-…

http://www.singersf.com/team/sam.html

Good post, but with just a hint of too much ageism. In twenty or thirty years, your not going to have as many invites to happening parties. Us old people, need the Bay to Breakers more than you kids, because, we life is like that, and we don’t get some many invitations any more to wild parties. The San Francisco that knows how, should not be lost. Good blog post.

why would someone need a ton of garbage cans and port-a-johns on a 7 mile route?? you cant just run the route without recycling your natty light 5 times or throwing out your 24 pack? fucking ridiculous

this question is exemplary of what B2B has become.

look, most of us drink .. but does every festival or walk etc need to become a reason to reduce ourselves to loutish behavior. seriously, how many drunks are enjoyable to be around?

this whole post is another childish opinion piece from UA

Can we get a bay area company to sponsor and do it right? For example more porto-potties, trash cans, float corrals, and float break-down stations.

There was less trash when people could bring their wagons/coolers/floats. You packed it in, you packed it out, you dragged it behind you covered in blinky lights and shitty speakers.