More on the Castro Halloween Controversy

In today's San Francisco Chronicle there's an article about a meeting of Castro business leaders that took place last night, and it looks like nobody's very happy about The City's decision to announce "no Halloween." The idea of canceling Halloween in the Castro is dependant on getting businesses to cooperate by shutting down for the night, so that there's no flame to attract the moths (so to speak), but when you have bars like Badlands saying they're not going to do it, it demonstrates how torn the community is over this. Halloween is a big money-maker for the bars, and they've not likely to shut down for the night (perhaps setting a precedent for every successive Halloween as well), but others are clearly tired of dealing with the situation. So at this point, it looks like there will be just as many police as last year, but no porta-potties (which police chief Heather Fong admits could lead to "unpleasant situations"), no street barricades, and no sound stages. Does this mean that we'll just have throngs of people milling around, looking for something to do and a place to take a dump? It's pretty clear we can't say "We're closing down the Castro, don't come here," and you can't arrest people for just walking around. Stay tuned readers, this year I'll even closer to the action than last year and will be sure to file a report.