Monday morning in Dolores Park: A tale of two types of parkgoer

So, either some garbage elves cleaned up part of the park and neglected the other part, OR some people are fucking assholes and some people are not.

(Thanks, @Braccs.)

63 Responses to “Monday morning in Dolores Park: A tale of two types of parkgoer”

  1. Soonerdiver says:

    I would go for the later option… some people just don’t give a shit! About anything!!

  2. dude says:

    it’s true!! To be fair, the dirty area is usually far more densely populated on a park day than the so-called meat-shelf, but still.

    • AC says:

      That and wind blows shit off of the shelf and into field area…either way, yeah, people suck. Slow news day?

      • Allan Hough says:

        You’re a slow news day.

      • COMG says:

        Many MM readers make the mistake of thinking that MM is a repository of investigative journalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Seriously, if you’re REALLY looking for that kind of stuff, you should head over to Mission Local, or someplace like that, and make all parties concerned much happier. MM is often a personal musing blog, an arts blog, and an information blog, and, even, sometimes, an infotainment blog — but it has RARELY ever been a news blog.

        If you’re thinking along the lines of “slow news day,” then you’re at the wrong place.

    • Whose Urban Now? says:

      So the gay dudes in speedos clean up when they leave – color me shocked!

  3. Anon says:

    It is mind boggling that a.) people even consider leaving their garbage behind in a public park b.) the people who do this aren’t verbally abused by their friends/family until they pick up their refuse and dispose of it properly.

    This is why we can’t have nice things.

    • BlackSharpiePen says:

      Yes, exactly. How is it that when people (I’m being kind here) get up and walk away from their mess that others don’t call them on it? Welcome to the generation of absurd entitlement.

  4. ALWAYS HIGH says:

    THIS JUST SHOWS HOW LAZY THAT ASIAN WOMAN IS

  5. phlavor says:

    Not only do I pack out my own trash, I grab anything that blows by while I’m there. I hate when people leave their trash. Makes me want to take a dump on their couch.

    • HRM says:

      Start asking them why the fuck they’re leaving their trash when they depart.

    • Neighbor says:

      Since no one else has said it – thank you! I try to do that myself and always appreciate when others do as well.

  6. Why do people shit where they eat? : says:

    I will never understand why so many Dolores Park goers leave their trash behind.

    Is it because they think their trash doesn’t stink?

    • truth says:

      i think the ‘shelf’ has more mission/castro locals who feel some sense of ownership/civic pride for the park and don’t want to trash it. ‘hipster hill’ has a lot more people from different neighborhoods and different cities visiting, local tourists, they don’t feel it’s their park, they think it’s a place to come party and give zero fucks. the people down there are also a lot drunker.

  7. Nick says:

    It seems there’s always going to be people who litter regardless of the examples set by others. Sucks, I know. It would also seem they don’t quite get the message of “hey this is your park too, don’t you want it to be clean?”

    Aside from shaming them publicly for littering (if you can catch them), there’s one other immediate course of action you can take. You can clean up their trash.

    Should you go around carrying a trash can and ask for people’s trash? You can, but I’m certain you went to the park to just hang out and relax. So, how about a compromise? If you see some trash and it’s not yours, take it to the bins. Pretty please with sugar on top :)

    • Why do people shit where they eat? : says:

      I agree that picking up after other’s is a must if you are in the “I prefer not to shit where I eat” camp.

      I have in the past brought an extra bags with me because I know when I go to clean my area I will have more than my trash to discard.

      Once, I was reading next to a guy who was smoking, some police were walking through and told him “no smoking in the park”.

      Other’s around him were sneering at the police and when he rubbed out his cig and left it buried in the grass as he asked the police “why should there be no smoking in the park” as other’s around him rooted him on.

      The police pointed to the cigarette butt in grass and said “thats why”. Then, the guy didn’t even pick it up and throw it away! And the other park goer’s seemed to be hating on the police and supporting the litter bug.

      This was a weekday with what appeared to be “park regulars” around.

      Calling them out on b.s might not change their behavior, but it can be satisfying.

      • BlackSharpiePen says:

        Cigarette butts are extremely toxic. These hair farmers can fuck off all the way back to Ohio.

    • T says:

      Same thing with the local streets – particularly in the Mission. Unfortunately, most people think picking up litter is someone else’s problem.

  8. simon stark says:

    it’s dicks like the proprietors of this “blog” that trash the park.

  9. Why do people shit where they eat? : says:

    Yes, litter is a Mission issue in general.

  10. MrEricSir says:

    Isn’t there some way we could upgrade a Roomba to clean up the park?

  11. Chalkman says:

    ban, or even better, slap a $5 tax, on filtered cigarettes in SF! Smoke unfiltered or handroll!

  12. scum says:

    Adults hang out in one section that mostly stays clean, dolts hang out in the other section that is mostly filthy.

  13. lazerlou says:

    Let’s be clear, hipsters are selfish, self involved poseurs who need to wear their individuality on their sleeves – literally – and are too busy thinking of themselves as “individuals” to contemplate their shared existence with others or to behave ethically toward others. Generation Me.

    • BlackSharpiePen says:

      While I partially agree with you, “hipsters” have no individuality. They’re more conformist than a 1950′s suburban father, but just in their ilk. Absurdly entitled, they will run rough shod (in $300 shoes that look like they came from Goodwill) over the city until they move on to jobs in banking and tech, and go back from whence they came.

    • RedPill says:

      This is what happens when you teach a generation that simply showing up is good enough.. Give them a fucking trophy!

  14. mmmhmmmm says:

    The dirty part is where the new transplanted hipster sit and the clean is where long time residents sit. The youngsters/hipsters, with a sense of self-entitlement, believe that someone will just pick-up after them…..and they are just drunk and high.

  15. gmorfy says:

    These kids have grown up with their soccer mom slave doing all the chores. In short: suburban spoiled brats.

  16. doobie says:

    if you saw me on the street you’d call me a hipster, but I wouldn’t associate with that description. I’m just a normal, hard working dude who chooses not to wear dockers and Gap. In this neighborhood I guess that would make me a hipster . I’m young and I moved into a place lining the park about 7 years ago (i guess just before the park jumped the shark). Self employed business owner and tend to associate with the residents crowd over the drunken weekend crowd.

    I literally live across from the park, and rented a place here with my wife because of the location, but I never sit in the park anymore because I’m just so disgusted by what happens every weekend. I don’t want to be a part of it:

    -the dicks i see flopping around from my window as people piss under the bridge
    -the creeps hanging out on the western pedestrian trail watching women squat in the bushes
    -the piss on my doorstep
    -all the trash left on the sidewalk outside my place from people who bothered to remove it from the park, but then leave it in a pile outside their car door
    -every fucking surface that is tagged on and around the bridge after every weekend, and the maintenance worker who spends all of Monday morning giving the bridge its 325th coat of beige paint to cover it up.
    -the super trashy people who keep the party going well past sundown and then get into drunken brawls at 3am outside my window
    -the drum and bass playing all day in the park. Who listens to that shit and who thinks, “you know what? I bet these 3000 people want to hear my shit music at 135db.”

    I think I’m outgrowing this location…

    • Dan says:

      All legtimate complaints – but you’ve definitely outgrown the location. There are 100s of people who will eagerly take your place. The cycle continues.

    • Sammy T says:

      Out of everything you mentioned – the drums are the worst.

      • AttF says:

        I think that is ‘drum-and-bass’, not ‘drums AND bass’…unless people are lugging bass amps to the park these days. I always found the Hippie Hill drum circle and assorted other instruments to be enjoyable, but the DP club-level dance music is the pits.

    • adsd says:

      Yep. Move to Marin. Time to for the yuppie phase, old man.

      • fakejoebiden says:

        You do know that the Y in yuppie stands for “young”, right?

      • doobie says:

        haha, maybe. I’m definitely reaching that “hey you damn kids, get off my lawn!” level of old man frustration. However, most of them are probably older than me.

  17. Tim K. says:

    Simple… Gay people clean up after themselves.

  18. st.loz says:

    says alot about the fuckers hanging out on that side of the park: the bad DJs, the hula hooping morons, the sage smellin’ motherfuckers, the lets-rope-off-part-of-the-lawn so we can play our bullshit game, the dreadlocked dude named Jared…fuck all of em.

  19. Bell says:

    So cleaning up after yourself in a public park and not wanting piss on your front steps makes you a yuppie? Good to know.

  20. trixr4kids says:

    since we’re discussing this, can we also do something about the mountains of vomit that are on the streets most saturday and sunday mornings along the v.c. (valencia corridor)? hearing the drunks puking as i am falling asleep is one thing but having to walk around it later is quite another.

  21. my name is joe says:

    gawd you’re all so petty and dull. The casino is going to crash, and you’re still bitching about trash.

  22. gmorfy says:

    Theory #1: the bottom crowd is too freaking lazy to climb up the hill for better views and better air. They’re also too lazy to pick up after themselves.

    Theory #2: The Speedo dudes threw their trash at the suburban plebe down the hill.

    Theory #3: Hipsters are lazy spoilt kids.

  23. TinyTim says:

    Just another facet of gentrification. Take-out foodie food and wasted resources to take out take-out. Thanks, little boys and girls. You do our City proud. Use up our City and move-on. The disposable throw-away society. Upscale talk about sustainability, trash the place and tweet the weeds of your excesses. Narcissists: view your reflection in the pool of piss in the depression that is Dolores (grief, sorrow) Park.

  24. Sfnola says:

    The level of whining on this subject is incredible. Are the people that use that side of DP spoiled douchebags? Of course. But the fact is, if you put thousands of people eating and drinking ANYWHERE, there is going to be litter. It would be wonderful if everyone always did the right thing, every time, everywhere. And if the after-effects of thousands of people enjoying themselves in the park is just too much for you to bear, then by all means please move to Walnut Creek. It definitely sucks there’s such a mess after a nice weekend. But its still such a pleasure to walk through the park and see so many different people doing so many different things in all areas of the park. For all the downside, Dolores Park on a nice day is still the single best place in the city, by far.

  25. damian says:

    THE POST:”TRUTH”..HAS SPOKEN THE TRUTH..NUFF SAID

  26. RedPill says:

    This has been happening for the 9 years I’ve lived in this hood.. Not because “hipsters” are dirty but because most of the kids you see aren’t from the surrounding areas, they are mostly spoiled, entitled, self serving scum, and are only able to be in the city because their parents foot the bill, or set them up with a tidy trust fund. The same parents that would clean up after them all day long and tell them how wonderful they are for doing nothing constructive besides playing video games or watching TV.

    I bet more of these shit heads blogged about the mess then actually bothered to pick something up off the ground.

  27. bellpeppernostrils says:

    i’m gonna get so drunk off the cocktails i make off the tears being shed in this post. thanks people!

  28. Schooner says:

    While the “hipster” zone clearly leads the charge on the amount of trash left behind after a nice day, you are kidding yourself if you think the “shelf” is clean and pristine. I walk through there every morning and there’s regularly all kinds of crap there too. Not to mention, if you are want to play the us vs. them game, the used condoms on the western trail are the most disgusting leave behinds of all.

  29. Sans says:

    Did anyone notice that the church tower in the background looks like a spaceship taking off?

  30. Paul says:

    If the noise of drums/bass and unauthorized amplified music is driving you crazy, be aware that the Police are aware of and concerned about the problem. Don’t hesitate to call them at 553-0123 to complain. Otherwise the problem is only bound to get even more out of control as spring and summer unfold. The noise-makers have no right to foist their high decibels on the rest of the park and the many people who live around the park.

  31. Paul says:

    It’s best to make your noise complaint as soon as the noise begins, don’t let it go on for hours before letting the police know…553-0123.

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