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Despite the fact that the San Francisco bay area is plagued with an infestation of dirty hippies, there are actually a few really great things about it that make me think I could actually live here. Then, as always seems to be the case, the city of San Francisco goes and gets all politically correct and stupid. In true fashion, the mayor of San Francisco recently announced that there would be no Halloween celebration in the Castro any more.

First of all, you must understand that I LOVE Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday. I start getting that itch to buy Halloween decorations for the next year before Christmas even arrives. Every year I struggle not to buy more Halloween things, practically shaking like a recovering drug addict. It seems each year I’m finding an excuse to decorate just another day or week earlier than the last.

So when I came to San Francisco and discovered there was a huge Halloween celebration in one of the strangest districts in the city, I was pratically salivating. What could be better than some crazy Halloween street party? Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t able to attend as many of them as I would have liked for various reasons that still anger me after many years. The times I have been able to attend, however, have been crazy fun!

For those of you not familiar with Halloween in the Castro, it is a massive street party where people dress in crazy costumes, bands play on several stages set throughout the area, and people just have a great time. Anything goes on that day. If you’ve never seen gay men go all out on Halloween, you’re missing out on some wild times. It doesn’t matter if you’re ugly, fat, or a nudist at heart (that is both ugly and fat), people wear the kind of costumes they want, and everyone just accepts it. Heck, they even applaud it.

Granted, the noise, glimpses of dark alley sex, braying assholes, stealth groping, and urine puddles, combined with no parking, overloaded public transit, and suspiciously absent cabs is a gigantic downside to the street festival, but the absolute fun and crazy times more than makes up for it.

Alcohol used to be okay at the event, but after several violent incidents, they banned alcohol and starting seriously staffing the event with police. Okay, fine. I can handle that. There’s plenty of time for drinking later. Last year, they talked about banning the decades old street festival altogether, despite a successful and peaceful festival the year before.

Well, that was before the 9 shooting injuries that took place at last year’s Halloween bash and thus sealed the fate of Halloween in the Castro. Unfortunately, I noticed the last time that I was there that as the night progressed it stopped being populated with laughing people, wild costumes and good times, and started being infiltrated by uncostumed thuggish looking men and women I can only assume must have been there to start some trouble. Even looking at pictures of the incident last year, one can see the suspicious lack of costumes.

So, yes, the street festival has been going a bit downhill recently, but canceling it? The solution the city has is to get a “big name band” to perform at AT&T Park and move the festival there. They will not provide public toilet facilities in the Castro this year, have encouraged shop owners to close early, and will patrol the area to move people toward the stadium. I’m sorry, but a stadium Halloween party? …… *sigh* It just loses something. It’s not the same, and that stadium party is going to flop because no one wants to be corralled.

Halloween in San Francisco is officially over. In it’s place will be the Diet Coke of Halloween. No matter how much they say it’s just like the real thing, we all know that when we take that first taste, it’s going to be a sad disappointment.

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