Breed threatens to close Dolores Park, reinstate street cleaning tickets

San Francisco officials have threatened to close Dolores Park if visitors do not abide by physical distancing guidelines.

During a Monday Covid-19 press briefing, Mayor London Breed   expressed dismay that the park was crowded over the weekend with groups of people not maintaining a 6-foot distance from one another.

Breed said:

“Dolores Park continues to be a real challenge because we know that on nice days, that is the place to be for so many folks.”

Breed added:

“We’re all adults here. There’s no reason that we should have to send in any of our law enforcement or anyone to tell people what they should be already doing.”

Within the next couple of days, Breed said city officials will monitor the park and determine whether the park will be closed to the public.

The mayor said:

“If we see that behavior has not changed, we will close the park. I want to be clear. This is the last thing I want to do.”

The City is also grappling with street cleaning challenges as vehicles are being left parked in one space and not moving for scheduling cleaning days. When the stay-at-home order was issued, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency suspended citations for people who were not able to move their vehicles for street cleaning purposes.

However, city and transit officials have urged residents to move their vehicles on street cleaning days if they are able-bodied. The mayor said that just is not happening.

She said:

“For those of you who are able-bodied and are not sick and can get up and move your cars for street cleaning, I’m asking you to do that because otherwise, we will have no other choice but to begin to reimplement our ticketing procedures around street cleaning before our orders expire.”

The City will continue to monitor the street cleaning situation along with the Dolores Park weekend crowding before making final policy decisions.

Jerold Chinn

Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.