No it is not OK but I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. There are certainly days like that but I don’t think this the norm. Finally, I don’t think it would be hard to teach people to clean up after themselves. A good start would be to have more trash cans. However, throwing around citation and like is just going to cause confrontation. It also makes people feel that it is them vs the city. You don’t really want to have that if you want people to respect a piece of government land.

“The Park Police do NOT take “joy” in harrassing people”

Some probably do and most don’t. I understand your attempt to humanize the park officials but you tend to de-humanize the people having parties. These are bad times and entertainment needs to be cheap. I don’t think these people WANT to make your life uncomfortable.

“There are park rules and everyone needs to abide by them.”

Yes but do you know what they are? Does anyone? Are these rules reasonable for the times? What is your notion of perfect park patronage?

The first thing I would do for that park is add toilets and more trash cans. If they did that and people were still peeing and leaving their waste out it would be hard for them upset if they did get a citation.

Also you have to imagine that this is because the Parks and Rec department needs to bring in more revenue. $1000 rent for selling food in the park is a bit high for the people who typically sell food there. It really needs to be lower.
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The Park Police do NOT take “joy” in harrassing people; they are trying to do their job and are stretched to the max. If you consider what they are doing “harassment” then I say, please, harass us more!

http://www.sfgov.org/site/recpark_index.asp?id=21884

The uniform is confusing, though.

I was fairly close to all this and didn’t notice that. In fact I was watching with a beer in hand about 10 feet away, they looked my way but kept moving.