The Examiner

By Melissa Griffin
San Francisco Examiner, April 7, 2009

Constant Readers,

For me: drinking + running = hilarious, crippling disaster. So, I’m not a big B2B participant. However, folks in this town love the Bay to Breakers, which is why I tuned in to watch yesterday’s public hearing on the subject.

Here is a short video I edited together because I was amused by the fact that the agenda might as well have read: (1) naked people, (2) peeing in public. We are, apparently, a city of mannerless, drunken douchebags. A fact that needs to be handled by discussing port-o-potties at length.

The first part of the vid is from public comment. Were there perfectly cogent arguments made for and against various proposed B2B rules? Yes. Did I include them? No. Is my sense of what’s funny/gross/interesting the same as that of a seventh grade boy? Pretty much. If you want to watch the whole 2 hour hearing, you can go here.

The second half of the video is a series of excerpts from the policy discussion that took place after public comment. Guess what subject seemed to dominate? You have to give Supervisor Mirkarimi credit here – he is certainly taking the time to get into the dirty details of the event.

Ultimately, there did not appear to be any changes as a result of the meeting. The sponsors had already agreed to add 200 port-a-potties to the number last year; they had also added some number of trash cans and a place to dispose of one’s float.

And these rules still stand: floats have to enter at the beginning of the parade route and no kegs or bottles allowed.

Though nudity was and is still permitted.

Soooo…there’s that. Have fun!