Activists Respond to Sup. Wiener's Plan to Close All Parks at Night with Hot Dog BBQ, Slumber Party

Keeping up his steady track record of disappointing everyone who isn't a wealthy donor or dementia victim, Supervisor Scott Wiener has been pushing hard to close down all city parks between the hours of midnight and 5am.  The stated goal?  To combat vandalism and illegal trash disposal in the parks.  Or, as Wiener put it, “[to provide] us with one more tool for protecting our parks.”

While vandalism and trash dumping is already illegal (and certainly a problem), officials claim that without enforceable closure hours giving them reason to bust people merely for being in a public space at night, there's little they can do to enforce the laws already on the books.

Of course, folks like Mayor Lee have been promoting the legislation for Supervisor Wiener have been more blunt about it—Lee told the Examiner that he sees the law as a way to clear the homeless out of parks.

Activists/people with empathy didn't take that well. So the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and an anonymous group of hot dog enthusiasts have organized two separate protests.

Harvey Milk is throwing a “sleep-in” at Dolores Park Monday night starting at 9pm that's gaining a lot of steam on Facebook.  Here's why:

San Francisco prides itself on being a place that is welcoming and open to all. Our parks remain one of the City’s greatest public treasures and are spaces of recreation, sport, entertainment, and leisure. This proposed legislation threatens the accessibility and openness of our parks and comes on the heels of a spate of recent policies at City Hall that have sought to regulate public spaces, to police bodies, and to criminalize homelessness. With almost 30% of San Francisco’s homeless population identifying as LGBT, and many living on our streets and in our parks, we know who the real targets of this legislation are. This is yet another attack on the homeless, on queer people, poor people, and people of color, and on our right to exist in public space in our society. The Harvey Milk Club has had enough. Parks are for people and we believe this policy to be another step in the wrong direction for San Francisco.

For those of you who don't do the cold (or, “what homeless people suffer through on a nightly basis”), you can also gobble up dick jokes and food poisoning Sunday night at the “Wiener Roast.”  Details and mission statements are more thin with that one, but they note “We have ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, and plates covered. Vegetarian wieners are being looked into.”

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote of Wiener's park closure legislation Tuesday, October 29th.

Comments (17)

Keep on fighting the good fight, folks.

*yawn*

next up on Uptown Almanac - People with empathy, or the empathy people, a fascinating in depth study on the quaint people we’re shoving out of SF

Scott Wiener is such a tool.

Can anyone explain what the trash in the park has to do with closing it at night? Or is this another case of legislation in search of a problem?

This is the case of someone in office looking to build a resume to make him a solid candidate for higher office.

This is Scott Wieners “Care not cash”

⅓ of the homeless in SF are queer identified….they are being tossed into the wood chipper to be made into political stepping stools.

Those who seek to dump their trash in the parks under the cover of night implicitly avail of the posted opening hours.

Without those posted hours who knows what sort of anarchy might descend upon us?

He should do something to open parks, not close them.

We spent Millions, not $900,000 to fix the Mission Park, and now the building is almost always locked, or only open to special groups.

How about cleaning the trash when people are in the park, instead of trying to keep more people out of the park.

Cultural wars, and we are so gonna lose this fight.

Open Parks, Don’t close them.

Pick up trash, don’t expose them.

Clean that trash! Clean it! Clean it!
When people are in the park… in the park… in the park!

Don’t keep more people out of the park!
out of the park!
out of the park!

Culture war!
Cultures Wars
Culture Wares
Cultural was
“Cultural wars, and we are so gonna lose this fight.”
“we are so gonna lose this fight.”
“we are so gonna lose this fight.”

Tonight!

That hotdog needs more watermarks from the site they stole it from. Classy.

This whole debate is obfuscated by the lame rhetoric on bith sides. On the Weiner tip (thank youuu), we have a politician talking about protecting parks from vandalism. Why not just talk about the obvious (to me): if you let people sleep in the parks, you are going to have unsavory elements persisting unchecked and people that eschew city services getting (mentally etc) sicker. The notion that sleeping in the park as some constructive game plan for homeless to me does not make any sense. I dont think they are pulling their lives together by sleeping under a bush. Ahy not just say that. Also, as a taxpayer, why cant I say that I dont want them sleeping there? Am I some kind of ogre for having the opinion that sleeping in the park at the very least does not improve peoples’ health and likely leads to more drug use, personal violations, and violence? Let me point out that every other large city closes its park at night.

The homeless “advocates” that are painting this with the hate crime brush are deluded. Lets me get this straight- so LGBTers that use taxpayer funded facilities are catching abuse from others in these facilities and thus should sleep in the park? What!? First of all, if 30% of homelss “identify” (nice soft definition) with LGBT, then why are they getting pushed around in the shelters? Are the other 70% all gay bashers? And if the facilities are lackking, why not seek to improve them rather than acquiesce to the gaybashers? I mean who is being insensitive to LGBT here when their “advocates” are saying they should sleep in the parks? Nice logic. By the way, I read a prime anecdote about the “abuse” of the shelters. One guy said he was called a “puta”. Name calling ? Come on..

I want to just add one thing- can we assume that homeless are often mentally struggling? Is it wise to listen to them when they say “leave me alone, let me sleep in the park, its better for me?”

We already have enough rules on the books to kick people out who sleep in the parks.

Also, this “every other city does _blah_” is pure BS. If you like those cities, then move there. We have our way of doing things here, and looking at the housing market, people are climbing over each other to move here. This stuff isn’t bothering anybody; it has always been this way and people in the City were OK with it. What changed? Oh yeah: Weiner’s ambitions.

$20 says these groups totally trash the park…..hey Harvey Milk LGBT, how about a group effort to clean up the park instead?

Weiner is a tool, and I regret voting for him every passing day. Next year, I hope we can boot his shady ass to the curb.

Where do I start? He pushed for the fees at the Botanical Garden, even though Helene Strybing, who gifted the garden to the City, specifically said that it should be free to all. Audits have shown that the fees basically don’t even cover the cost of operating the fees!!

Then he sold out to AT&T by giving them permission to install 100s of refrigerator-sized boxes on public sidewalks so they can provide yesterday’s technology (“uverse”) to residents and continue to gouge them. These boxes are grafitti magnets and the tech is old, capping the speed at 12Mbps when Google is installing fiber in KC at 1Gbps.

Then he forced the naked people to cover up in the Castro, doing away a tradition that’s been there for decades. Look, I get it: most of those naked dudes were an eye sore; but it’s the FREEDOM we’re talking about. As a straight dude, I wasn’t too keen about them; but I defend their right to be naked and feel happy. They weren’t bothering anyone. Now they walk around with little socks on their weewees; how’s that any better?

When Amelie Moullac was run over by a truck and the SFPD screwed up the investigation, we all reached out to Weiner, as our supe, to get some answers from SFPD. He never even bothered to get back to us.

All Weiner cares about his himself; no joke.

Amen

Recall Campaign, anyone?

How the fuck is it Scott Wiener’s business if my friend wants to walk her dog in the park after 12?
How the fuck is it Scott Wiener’s business if peeps want to hang out and talk in a public park after dinner or a movie?
How the fuck is it any of Scott Wiener’s business if someone wants to walk into Golden Gate Park and check out the stars?

Who the fuck is this stick-up-his-skinny-ass idiot to tell us what we are allowed to do and where and when he’s decided that will be acceptable?