Bay to Breakers cleans up its act

SAN FRANCISCO — Kelley Ashtari, of San Francisco, has walked the Bay to Breakers with friends three times, but she won’t be there this Sunday.

“One of the big reasons is all the restrictions,” said the 41-year-old. “In the past, it’s been a way for us to get together and have fun and meet people we wouldn’t have met any other way. It feels like community, like everyone is there just to have a good time.”

After years of complaints from residents, neighborhood groups and runners about intoxicated people on the course, others urinating and vomiting in yards, unruly behavior, arrests and injuries, organizers for the first time have banned booze, headphones, floats of any kind and race “bandits,” those who don’t register and pay the $75 fee. Runners can still run naked and dress up in costumes, organizers said.

The new restrictions come in the wake of Global financial group ING pulling its deep-pocket support after last year’s race, forcing officials to scramble for a new sponsor for the 100th running of the Bay to Breakers. Organizers eventually signed a two-year deal with Zazzle, a Redwood City website that personalizes items such as T-shirts and coffee mugs.

“It feels really confining, and I understand, because if I owned a home along the raceway I wouldn’t want people relieving themselves in my yard, but I think that is a small number of participants,” Ashtari said. “I feel like the masses are being blamed for the actions of a few.”

In the past, the norm has been the place where Gatorade spiked with vodka, beer kegs in shopping carts and floats with couches, stripper poles and bubble-making machines.

Plenty of people run naked or in nothing but spray paint. They dress up as giant Rubix Cubes, oversized doughnuts, bunches of grapes, parts of the female anatomy, outhouses, and run in snaking centipedes. There’s also typically a group of “salmon swimming up stream” who run the course starting from the finish line to the start line.

“The more (people dressed as) Carmen Miranda, the better. We encourage (running) in tutus, we just don’t want too, too much,” said David Perry of David Perry and Associates, the San Francisco public relations firm representing the race, adding that organizers have received complaints, even “hate mail” about the new restrictions.

“What I say is this is a public safety campaign. We want to see a 101st Bay to Breakers. We want a race that is civil and sober.

“Race organizers, working closely with city hall and the police department, will have zero tolerance for public drunkenness.”

Organizers said police will be out in record numbers, race bibs will be scanned to ensure they are real, and checkpoints will be set up along the route to ferret out drunken people, along with sobering tents on the 12K route for those who have had too much to drink.

Last year, more than two dozen people went to hospitals with problems related to drinking too much alcohol, Perry said, and city workers collected 18 tons of trash after the race.

The new restrictions spawned opposition groups, such as the Citizens for the Preservation of the Bay2Breakers, which has more than 15,000 members on its Facebook page.

“Bay to Breakers is one of the most eclectic expressions of diversity, culture and community in the world!,” Shinyung Schwartz wrote on the Citizens for the Preservation of the Bay2Breakers’ Facebook page. “A celebration of diversity and acceptance that is unique to San Francisco Bay to Breakers is more than just a 12K, it means so much more to the citizens of San Francisco, and to everyone else who truly loves this city. In all fairness, I can understand trying to enforce rules on drinking, and rowdiness in general … but floats? Why?”

Bay to Breakers started in 1912 as a way to lift the city’s spirits after the devastating 1906 earthquake. It got its name because it starts at the Embarcadero (Bay) and ends at Ocean Beach (the breakers). No one knows exactly how many people run each year because many run and walk without registering, but this year organizers capped the race at 55,000 and it sold out.

Sarah Smith, 42, took first place in the over 40 women’s division at the Oakland Marathon in March and has completed many marathons and ultra marathons. The Oakland woman said she usually runs a different race on Bay to Breakers day.

“I typically do not run Bay to Breakers because the party scene and the large crowd make it difficult to run well, but I might be more inclined to run it now if there are fewer drunk people and fewer floats to get tangled up in.”

Bob Stratton, of Walnut Creek, will run his 30th consecutive Bay to Breakers. Stratton, 60, is a serious runner who has logged several marathons. But Stratton also knows Bay to Breakers is not the place to set a personal record or bring home an age-group awards medal.

“You know with this race what you are getting into. You aren’t going to win. Someone from Kenya is going to win,” Stratton said. “You have to laugh. It’s entertainment. If you know going in that people are in costumes, there’s music and there are people laughing and talking all along the way, then you’ll have a good time.”