San Francisco Is Taking Online Reservations for Dolores Park… and People Are Pissed

May 24, 2016
9:38 AM
Dolores Park

Dolores Park

A story from sfist is bringing back bad memories of how San Francisco is dealing with public park space. According to the story, people can now pay to reserve public spaces of the park:

A two-month pilot program from the Recreation and Parks Department now allows people to reserve sections of Dolores Park for periods of at least seven hours. And no, not the picnic table areas (which you’ve always been able to reserve), but just straight up sections of grass near Hipster Hill/Fixie Flats. What’s more, on weekends Rec and Parks plans on having staff on site to enforce the reservations — so you better not sit in someone’s spot.

As you might imagine, news of this program (see more at the city’s recreation and parks page) is not sitting well with residents of The Mission. A Change.org petition has already gathered more than 7,000 signatures just hours after the sfist came out:

According to SFRPD spokesperson John Kahn, a two-month pilot program from the Recreation and Parks Department now allows people to reserve sections of Dolores Park for periods of at least seven hours. The reservations must be paid for online. Costs range from $33-260 plus a $200 security deposit.

Mission Dolores Park has always been and will continue to be a park for the people. We will not allow SF Rec and Park to privatize access for those with the resources to make it their personal playground!

As we saw at Mission Playground last year, there is no need to change the existing free use of a park with limited space and diverse population. This reservation program disenfranchises residents and further fractures the already fragile balance of the Mission’s cultural ecosystem.

NO PICNIC RESERVATIONS AT DOLORES!!!!

Looks like the backlash against the program worked: San Francisco is stopping the program.