Contretemps Quieted: S.F. Ends Picnic Reservations for Dolores Park Lawns

It's been awhile -- weeks, at least -- since San Francisco has seen a dust-up over gentrification and the rise of techies, hipsters, bros, post-hipsters, steam punks and nouveau grungesters who are remaking the city in their own image. Or images.

The wait for the next contretemps is over. In fact, the contretemps itself is over, even before it really got up a good head of steam.

As reported Monday by SFist, an apparently new site-reservation policy at the Mission District's Dolores Park excited the ire of those who saw the program as another attempt by moneyed, digital, IPA-loving types to seize a beloved slice of San Francisco real estate.

Specifically, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department policy allowed people to pay to reserve limited patches of the Dolores Park lawns. You know, for picnics.

The department says it's been doing this for decades and that the reservable area of the park was 5 percent of its total square footage. The department also says part of the intent of the program has been to help pay for cleaning up trash left behind by park-goers. On its face, none of that sounds unreasonable.

Yet the SFist post, landing in the middle of a community ready to rise up at the first sign of grasping interlopers, was enough to trigger a tsunami of opposition.

Supervisor Jane Kim tweeted, "Our city's not for sale and it shouldn't be for rent either." She elaborated later that she's very concerned the reservation policy would put the city "on a slippery slope where the very wealthy are the only ones who can fully enjoy public spaces in San Francisco." A Change.org petition that went online Monday had attracted nearly 15,000 signatures by early Tuesday afternoon.

Maybe my sense of justice is groggy, but I don't get the outrage. After all, lots of San Francisco parks take reservations for a fee. In many, you can even reserve lawn areas. Is that putting the city up for sale? Or does it allow people to ensure predictable access to a desired space for an event like a birthday party?

At this point, those questions are academic. With the signature count on the online petition mounting and Supervisor Scott Wiener, who represents the Dolores Park neighborhood, getting involved, Rec and Parks announced it's canceling the lawn reservation program at Dolores Park.

Dennis Kern, director of operations for the Rec and Parks, said reservations will continue for the four picnic table areas at Dolores Park, as they have for years. He noted that surrounding communities do much the same thing. Nearby cities that allow park reservations for a fee include Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose and San Rafael.

"This is a standard practice throughout park districts throughout the nation, actually," Kern said. "Presidio, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, East Bay Regional Parks, all of the other park areas in other municipalities, this is a standard park practice."