May 25th and 26th
Located on Harrison Street between 16th and 24th Streets

Photo via Carnaval San Francisco / Pankaj Bhargava.

Carnaval San Francisco is a colorful two-day festival held annually over Memorial Day weekend in San Francisco's Mission District. It celebrates Latin American, Caribbean and Afro-diasporic cultures through music, dance, art and cuisine.

Founded in 1979 by a group of artists and activists, it is now the largest multicultural festival on the West Coast. The free festival spans 17 blocks in the Mission District, primarily along Harrison Street between 16th and 24th Streets. It features five main stages with over 50 local artists, 400 vendors, international cuisine, crafts and various activities for all ages.

The highlight is the lively grand parade on Sunday with elaborate costumes, music and dance groups representing different cultures and traditions.

The post San Francisco is heating up — Right here’s what’s occurring in Could 2024 | by The Daring Italic | Could, 2024 appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

English

Since arriving in San Francisco from Nicaragua in September, 11-year-old Enyel Cruz has learned the value of a good night’s rest.

At a unique shelter for public school children and their families at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School, the soccer-loving sixth-grader sleeps on a mat laid out in the gym alongside his parents and his 15-year-old sister. During the day, the mats are piled up to make room for regular student activities at the bilingual Mission District school.

“In Nicaragua, I slept well,” Enyel said in Spanish through a translator. “Here, my back hurts.”

In the afternoons, Enyel stays in an afterschool program while his sister does her homework at a McDonald’s. In the evenings, the whole family then left back up to enter the shelter. The next morning, they wake up at 6 am to clear out. The kids go back to school, while parents Juan Gomez and Silvia Cruz look for work as they await help on their asylum cases.

Gomez, who grew up on Guerrero Street before he was deported to Nicaragua, praised the stayover program, which is run by Dolores Street Community Services. But the constant back and forth wears on the family.

When asked what he wants in a home, Enyel’s answer was simple: “To eat well, be stable, not have to get up at 6 am”

“It’s hard on us to be able to get up in the morning,” Gomez said of the shelter. “Especially when you have nowhere to go. Not working and sometimes not having money, you know, it affects you a little bit. So, I don’t like seeing my kids like that.”

(From left) Enyel Cruz, Juan Gomez, Silvia Cruz and Ashley Arguello Cruz pose for a portrait at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School. | Alexis Cuarezma for The Standard

A Rise in Family Homelessness

The Gomez-Cruz family is part of an uptick in families experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. The phenomenon is partly driven by job loss, the high cost of living and a surge in asylum seekers. The city logged 616 unhoused families enrolled in response programs in the last quarter of 2022, up from 578 families in the prior three months.

At a Jan. 13 hearing on family homelessness called by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said the city enrolled 493 families in its homeless response system during the same fall/winter period of 2021.

San Francisco Unified School District tallied 2,061 students as experiencing homelessness, self-reported by their families. In its count, the district includes students living in SROs or doubled up with other families.

Of the 2,090 homeless students in the 2020-21 school year, 44% were Latino, 24% were Chinese, 14% were Black, and 4.7% were Filipino.

An impending closure of the Oasis Family Shelter in December led to a shortage of beds in the overall family shelter system, leading families to camp outside Buena Vista Horace Mann (BVHM) while waiting for a spot. Since then, Oasis reopened, and the capacity of BVHM’s stayover program increased.

Buena Vista Horace Mann has a unique program with Dolores Street Community Services to provide shelter for families, many of them recent immigrants from Latin America. | Alexis Cuarezma for The Standard

In the overwhelming number of cases, households experiencing homelessness are headed by women. This year, the city will add a couple hundred units of permanent supportive housing for families and another couple hundred to subsidize rent.

But sooner or later, demand may exceed even that increased capacity.

“We’re riding the very, very edge of our capacity limits,” said Richard Whipple, interim director of the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs. “Nonprofit partners are well beyond their capacity. Every day more folks arrive. We’re in a very precarious situation.”

‘All Beginnings Are Hard’

Families seek shelter as a result of housing instability through loss of jobs, eviction notices they don’t fight out of fear, by being released from immigration detention centers, or by seeking jobs from rural areas where they may wind up living out of their vehicles . Many families that Dolores Street Community Services works with either have a history of domestic violence or are in the middle of it, according to executive director Laura Valdéz.

The uptick is driven, in part, by a surge of asylum-seekers. Of the over 620 immigrant students to arrive in SFUSD in 2022, over 80% are asylum seekers like the Gomez-Cruz children, according to Whipple.

Of the 10 families staying at the BVHM shelter as of Jan. 13, three are from Peru, and three are from Nicaragua, while others are from El Salvador, South Africa, Slovakia, and Guatemala.

Jose Mendoza and Maritza Guiterrez settled with their children—ages 6, 15 and 22—at BVHM’s shelter last week after fleeing Nicaragua’s political instability.

(From left) Maritza Gutierrez, Alexa Mendoza, Jose Mendoza, Joseph Mendoza and Carlos Rivas pose for a portrait at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School. | Alexis Cuarezma for The Standard

Until their asylum case is heard and a lawyer assigned to them, both parents lack work permits for better job opportunities and the stability for their families that comes with that.

According to Whipple, the San Francisco Immigration Legal Defense Collaborative is seeing “record waitlists for representation.”

“You couldn’t have peace in the streets,” Mendoza, an electrician, said in Spanish through a translator. “We don’t have another option. All beginnings are hard.”

Mendoza said his 6-year-old thinks the back-and-forth “is like a game.” His 15-year-old was waiting to start school at SFUSD while his 22-year-old, who had to drop his pursuit of a degree in Nicaragua, was in the process of enrolling at City College.

At age 11, Enyel is already seeing a future past this instability. He’s known for a couple years now that he wants to be a soccer player like Cristiano Ronaldo or a lawyer. The first career choice he identified is to be an architect.

“To make a house,” he said.

English

The post What’s Driving San Francisco’s Rise in Household Homelessness? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

“So when COVID happened and every single person in the household is losing their job, that really created a very dire situation,” she said.

Now the ripple effects are showing up as more people are becoming homeless. Despite measures meant to protect renters, homelessness among Latino residents has spiked around California.

In San Francisco, homelessness among Latino residents is up 55% since 2019, according to the latest point-in-time count, despite an overall drop in the homeless population. In Alameda County, Latino homelessness rose 73% during the same time period, according to the nonprofit EveryOneHome, which conducts the county’s tally. It jumped by 26% in Los Angeles County and by 19% in Kern County, since they did their last counts in 2020.

The recent counts also show that Black people continue to be overrepresented on California’s streets.

Surveying his RV neighborhood, Jose Diaz offers one explanation for why more Latinos are becoming homeless.

“Remember, Americans get unemployment,” he said. “Most people here, they might be immigrants, they might not have papers, so there’s no help.”

It’s not just undocumented Latinos, though. Diaz has a U visa (for victims of crime who work with law enforcement on investigations) that allows him to work legally. But he didn’t apply for rent relief or unemployment because he worried it could hurt his pending application for permanent residency.

Earlier this year, UCLA researchers found Latinos in California were about half as likely as whites to have applied for and received rent relief.

“Our community is not accessing the homelessness response system,” Valdez said, including rent relief and legal aid. She attributes that in part to fears like Diaz’s, to language and cultural barriers and to the silencing effect of xenophobic political rhetoric.

Diaz is now working as a truck driver. He plans to stay in the RV, save money and move away from the city, because he doesn’t see a future here.

Before the pandemic, with Diaz and his wife working, he says they’d be left with $150 at the end of the month.

“Who can survive on that? Nobody,” he said. “Everyone who ended up out here is just trying to survive.”

Latinos now make up 30% of the unhoused people in San Francisco, though they’re only 16% of the overall population, according to the city’s most recent count.

As bad as those new numbers are, they don’t account for the homelessness that’s harder to see — the kind Miriam Mora is living.

The 32-year-old has been moving place to place for the past few weeks with her three kids, who are 14, 9 and 6 months old. After staying in her car for a stint, they moved into her sister’s living room. Now they’re living at her brother’s Tenderloin studio.

Miriam Mora walks to visit her sister with her daughters Miriam (then 5 months) and Julissa (9), in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. Mora lost her job during the pandemic and has been struggling to find affordable housing. Right now she is staying with her brother, who already has several roommates in his studio apartment. Latinos now make up 30% of the unhoused people in San Francisco, though they’re only 16% of the overall population, according to the city’s most recent count. Mora said she would prefer to live in a different neighborhood where there are fewer people on the street and less drug use. (Marlena Sloss/KQED)

He already had five roommates, so it’s 10 of them in one room, sharing bunk beds. Mora says she left her last home, which she shared with roommates in the Excelsior, after her landlord raised the rent, intimidated her and threatened to evict her.

“We paid the rent, but the landlord still harassed us,” she said in Spanish.

These kinds of self-evictions aren’t officially tracked, but tenant advocates say they have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic, especially among Latino renters.

“We’ve got people who tell us their landlords tell them verbally to leave their units every day,” said Lucia Leal, a tenant counselor with Causa Justa/Just Cause. “They don’t want to deal with the harassment,” so they leave, even if they have the right to stay.

Latinos are also overrepresented in formal eviction data in San Francisco, even with eviction moratoriums in place during the pandemic. According to data collected by the Eviction Defense Collaborative, 20% of eviction filings between March of 2020 and March of 2022 were against Latino tenants.

When tenants don’t know their rights, don’t speak English, have an informal living arrangement without a lease or don’t have legal status, it gives landlords a lot of power, Leal says.

Mora lost her job doing hourly gig work at the start of the pandemic, but says her landlord demanded the rent no matter what. “He said, ‘Come rain or thunder, whatever happens, I want my rent on the first of the month,'” Mora said.

Miriam Mora walks down the stairs with her daughter, Miriam (then 5 months) at her brother’s apartment in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. (Marlena Sloss/KQED)

Mora applied for COVID rent relief, but got denied. She says her landlord wouldn’t cooperate with the application process. So she used her savings and borrowed money from a family member to cover her rent. She’s $21,000 in debt now.

After she moved out, Mora says, she tried to get into a family shelter, but was put on a waiting list. She went to Compass Family Services, one of the access points for the city’s coordinated entry system.

Under the coordinated entry system, which is required by the federal government, people who are unhoused must go to an access point, meet with a case manager and answer a series of questions about their experiences. They are then ranked according to their level of need, and may or may not get placed in a shelter or other housing.

But that system creates its own barriers for Latinos, says Valdez. “If you just look at coordinated entry systems anywhere, not just here in San Francisco, they create structural disparities,” she said.

A 2022 city-commissioned report on the coordinated entry system found that Latinos were less likely to be prioritized for housing than other groups and were underrepresented in the system.

Meanwhile, the Latino Task Force’s Street Needs Assessment Committee surveyed more than 100 unhoused residents in the Mission earlier this year and found that almost a quarter became homeless during the pandemic, and 83% were not in the coordinated entry system.

Larisa Pedroncelli, co-chair of the committee, attributes this to a number of factors: distrust, especially among undocumented immigrants, the lack of access points in the mission, and a dearth of linguistically and culturally competent service providers.

“You are being assessed by somebody you’ve never met and you’re asked to share some of your deepest traumas,” she said, noting that many people feel uncomfortable sharing those experiences, and that’s why they don’t get connected with the housing and services they need.

The committee’s report calls for empowering mission-based organizations to facilitate coordinated entry access. “Because the relationships are there, they know the folks on the street, so it’s much easier for them to share their traumas and to be able to be properly assessed,” Pedroncelli said.

Emily Cohen, spokesperson for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, says the department is ramping up work in the Mission, in part by increasing partnerships with nonprofits that serve the Latino community and opening a new coordinated entry access point in the neighborhood.

Mora is also looking for more permanent housing. Every week, she goes to the Mission Economic Development Agency to apply for one of the city’s few open affordable apartments, but her chances of landing a spot are slim. On a visit in September, she’s one of 814 people who’ve applied for a single apartment.

Miriam Mora leaves her brother’s apartment building with her daughters Miriam (then 5 months) and Julissa (9) as two men who were sitting on the steps move aside in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. (Marlena Sloss/KQED)

Ultimately, the Latino Task Force says the city needs to focus more on building affordable housing,

They are calling for policy changes, like curbing market rate housing development in neighborhoods where residents are most vulnerable to displacement.

Valdez, who works with the task force, wants to see more efforts to prevent evictions and greater investments in affordable housing. Without them, she says, as the Latino population in the city continues to grow, “We’re just going to see larger and larger numbers of unhoused community members.”

Mora has worked service industry jobs since she came to this country alone as a teenager. She was doing gig work when the pandemic started, and when that dried up the state denied her unemployment claim. She says she feels exploited because she’s worked hard and paid taxes and she can’t afford to live here.

“If we can contribute to the economy but we can’t have a safe place to live, it’s not a fair trade,” she said.

Now, after 15 years in San Francisco, she’s considering going back to her hometown of Puebla in Mexico.

The post What’s Driving the Spike in Homelessness for Latinos in San Francisco? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

“So when COVID happened and every single person in the household is losing their job, that really created a very dire situation.”

Now the ripple effects are showing up as more people are becoming homeless. Despite measures meant to protect renters, homelessness among Latino residents has spiked around California.

In San Francisco, homelessness among Latino residents is up 55% since 2019, according to the latest point in time count, despite an overall drop in the homeless population. In Alameda County, Latino homelessness rose 73% during the same time period, according to the nonprofit EveryoneHome, which conducts the county’s tally. It jumped by 26% in Los Angeles County and by 19% in Kern County, since they did their last counts in 2020.

The recent counts also show Black people continue to be overrepresented on California’s streets.

Surveying his RV neighborhood, Jose Diaz offers one explanation for why more Latinos are becoming homeless.

“Remember, Americans get unemployment,” he said. “Most people here, they might be immigrants, they might not have papers, so there’s no help.”

It’s not just undocumented Latinos, though. Diaz has a U Visa (for victims of crime who work with law enforcement on investigations) that allows him to work legally. But he didn’t apply for rent relief or unemployment because he worried it could hurt his pending application for permanent residency.

Earlier this year, UCLA researchers found Latinos in California were about half as likely as whites to have applied for and received rent relief.

“Our community is not accessing the homelessness response system,” Valdez says, including rent relief and legal aid. She attributes that in part to fears like Diaz’s, to language and cultural barriers and to the silencing effect of xenophobic political rhetoric.

Diaz is now working as a truck driver. He plans to stay in the RV, save money and move away from the city, because he doesn’t see a future here.

Before the pandemic, with Diaz and his wife working, he says they’d be left with $150 at the end of the month.

“Who can survive on that? Nobody,” he says. “Everyone who ended up out here is just trying to survive.”

Latinos now make up 30% of homeless people in San Francisco, though they’re only 16% of the overall population, according to the city’s most recent count.

As bad as those new numbers are, they don’t account for the homelessness that’s harder to see – the kind Miriam Mora is living.

The 32-year-old has been moving place to place for the past few weeks with her three kids, who are 14, 9 and 6-months-old. After staying in her car for a stint, they moved into her sister’s living room. Now they’re living at her brother’s Tenderloin studio.

Miriam Mora walks to visit her sister with her daughters, Miriam, 5 months, and Julissa, 9, in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Mora lost her job during the pandemic and has been struggling to find affordable housing. Right now she is staying with her brother who already has several roommates in his studio apartment. Latinos now make up 30 percent of homeless people in San Francisco, though they’re only 16 percent of the overall population, according to the city’s most recent count. Mora said would prefer to live in a different neighborhood where there are fewer people on the street and less drug use. (Marlena Sloss/KQED)

He already had five roommates, so it’s 10 of them in one room, sharing bunk beds. Mora says she left her last home, which she shared with roommates in the Excelsior, after her landlord raised the rent, intimidated her and threatened to evict her.

“We paid the rent, but the landlord still harassed us,” she says in Spanish.

These kinds of self evictions aren’t officially tracked, but tenant advocates say they have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic, especially among Latino renters.

“We’ve got people who tell us their landlords tell them verbally to leave their units every day,” says Lucia Leal, a tenant counselor with Causa Justa/Just Cause. “They don’t want to deal with the harassment,” so they leave, even if they have the right to stay.

Latinos are also overrepresented in formal eviction data in San Francisco, even with eviction moratoriums in place during the pandemic. According to data collected by the Eviction Defense Collaborative, 20% of eviction filings between March of 2020 and March of 2022 were against Latino tenants.

When tenants don’t know their rights, don’t speak English, have an informal living arrangement without a lease or don’t have legal status, it gives landlords a lot of power, Leal says.

Mora lost her job doing hourly gig work at the start of the pandemic, but says her landlord demanded the rent no matter what. “He said ‘Come rain or thunder, whatever happens, I want my rent on the first of the month,’” Mora says.

Miriam Mora walks down the stairs with her daughter, Miriam, 5 months, at her brother’s apartment in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Mora lost her job during the pandemic and has been struggling to find affordable housing. Right now she is staying with her brother who already has several roommates in his studio apartment. Latinos now make up 30 percent of homeless people in San Francisco, though they’re only 16 percent of the overall population, according to the city’s most recent count. (Marlena Sloss/KQED)

She applied for COVID rent relief, but got denied. She says her landlord wouldn’t cooperate with the application process. So she used her savings and borrowed money from a family member to cover her rent. She’s $21,000 in debt now.

After she moved out, Mora says she tried to get into a family shelter, but was put on a waiting list. She went to Compass Family Services, one of the access points for the city’s coordinated entry system.

Under the coordinated entry system, which is required by the federal government, people who are unhoused must go to an access point, meet with a case manager and answer a series of questions about their experiences. They are then ranked according to their level of need, and may or may not get placed in a shelter or other housing.

But that system creates its own barriers for Latinos, says Valdez. “If you just look at coordinated entry systems anywhere, not just here in San Francisco, they create structural disparities.”

A 2022 city-commissioned report on the coordinated entry system found Latinos were less likely to be prioritized for housing than other groups and were underrepresented in the system.

Meanwhile, the Latino Task Force’s Street Needs Assessment Committee surveyed more than 100 unhoused residents in the Mission earlier this year and found almost a quarter became homeless during the pandemic, and 83% were not in the coordinated entry system.

Larisa Pedroncelli, co-chair of the committee, attributes this to a number of factors: distrust, especially among undocumented immigrants, the lack of access points in the mission, and a dearth of linguistically and culturally competent service providers.

“You are being assessed by someone you’ve never met and you’re asked to share some of your deepest traumas,” she says, noting that many people feel uncomfortable sharing those experiences, and that’s why they don’t get connected with the housing and services they need.

The committee’s report calls for empowering mission-based organizations to facilitate coordinated entry access. “Because the relationships are there, they know the folks on the street, so it’s much easier for them to share their traumas and to be able to be properly assessed,” Pedroncelli says.

Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, says the department is ramping up work in the Mission, in part by increasing partnerships with nonprofits that serve the Latino community and opening a new coordinated entry access point in the neighborhood.

Mora is also looking for more permanent housing. Every week, she goes to the Mission Economic Development Agency to apply for one of the city’s few open affordable apartments, but her chances of landing a spot are slim. On a visit in September, she’s one of 814 people who’ve applied for a single apartment.

Miriam Mora leaves her brother’s apartment building with her daughters, Miriam, 5 months, and Julissa, 9, as two men who were sitting on the steps move aside in the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Mora lost her job during the pandemic and has been struggling to find affordable housing. Right now she is staying with her brother who already has several roommates in his studio apartment. Latinos now make up 30 percent of homeless people in San Francisco, though they’re only 16 percent of the overall population, according to the city’s most recent count. Mora said would prefer to live in a different neighborhood where there are fewer people on the street and less drug use. (Marlena Sloss/KQED)

Ultimately, the Latino Task Force says the city needs to focus more on building affordable housing,

They are calling for policy changes, like curbing market rate housing development in neighborhoods where residents are most vulnerable to displacement.

Valdez, who works with the task force, wants to see more efforts to prevent evictions and greater investments in affordable housing. Without them, she says, as the Latino population in the city continues to grow “We’re just going to see larger and larger numbers of unhoused community members.”

Mora has worked service industry jobs since she came to this country alone as a teenager. She was doing gig work when the pandemic started and when that dried up the state denied her unemployment claim. She says she feels exploited because she’s worked hard and paid taxes and she can’t afford to live here.

“If we can contribute to the economy but we can’t have a safe place to live, it’s not a fair trade,” she says.

Now, after 15 years in San Francisco, she’s considering going back to her hometown of Puebla in Mexico.

The post What’s Driving The Spike In Homelessness For Latinos In San Francisco? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Maybe it’s just me but what’s so riveting about the Winter Olympics?

Outside of ski jumping, slalom skiing, bobsled, luge and hockey, it’s either X Games on steroids or figure skating that’s more boring than watching ice melt.

And then there’s curling. It’s essentially shuffleboard on ice by people who look more like bowlers than athletes. big deal I’d much rather watch an Eskimo Pie eating contest. Don’t laugh. Much of the Winter Olympics menu is made-up novelty competitions.

The Winter Olympics were created to cut countries who are mostly frozen tundra a break because they’re terrible at real sports thanks to fields too slippery to practice on.

After all, when’s the last time a guy from Lapland quarterbacked in the Super Bowl or pitched in Game 7 of the World Series or won the Masters or reached the Wimbledon final? I rest my case.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, maybe it’s just me but is Joe Burrow the only reason the Cincinnati Bengals are in this year’s Grand Spectacle? The Bengals were the Bungles for about 317 years until they drafted this kid.

The Los Angeles Rams, who traded away all their future No. 1 draft picks into the next century just to stockpile this year’s team with superstars, are favored to win the Super Bowl.

So what? Even though Cincinnati’s offensive line couldn’t block a hat let alone that ferocious Los Angeles pass rush, destiny is riding on the rocket right arm of Burrow.

Only two quarterbacks have ever won a national championship in college and the Super Bowl. A couple of Joes in Namath with Alabama and the New York Jets and Montana with Notre Dame and the San Francisco 49ers.

FYI, Burrow won a national championship at LSU. Talk about an omen jumping up and slapping you in the face. Want to bet a cup of Joe on this Joe joining Namath and Montana in pulling off a college/pro championship tandem?

Maybe it’s just me but why doesn’t the Super Bowl halftime entertainment ever feature Snoop Dogg rapping Tennyson’s poetry about the British cavalry?

Maybe it’s just me but isn’t it way past time we stop making Americans file federal, state and local income taxes?

Just deduct the taxes from our paychecks and be done with it. I’ll gladly live without a tax return if you spare me the paperwork. Better yet, let our rich Uncle Sam automatically send all of us a healthy tax refund and let Joe Biden worry about inflation soaring like a Jeff Bezos rocket.

Maybe it’s just me but I found it hard to feel sorry for the folks at the Jersey shore who got buried up to their eyebrows in snow last weekend. How many times have we long-suffering folks in Berks County been entombed in an avalanche while the beachcombers only got rain?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that people who don’t sweat anything never have dehydrated spirits?

Maybe it’s just me but why do women need bedroom closets bigger than Japan?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that promise and fulfillment don’t always share the same zip code?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that the night becomes crowded with hostile voices and vices in hard, mean neighborhoods known to erupt in anarchy?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever wonder why salesmen whose line is doorknobs never sell door to door?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever feel an arctic wind shake a joist or beam loose in your spinal infrastructure?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that people whose ego is their personal chauffeur never seem to go anywhere?

Maybe it’s just me but do politicians ever get tired of pounding the pudding out of one another?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that guys with broad shoulders have trouble finding work as a chimney sweep?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that life has a darker side when viewed through the neon prism of a cocktail lounge?

Mike Zielinski, a resident of Berks County, is a columnist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

The post Reflections column – What’s so riveting in regards to the Winter Olympics? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Maybe it’s just me but what’s so riveting about the Winter Olympics?

Outside of ski jumping, slalom skiing, bobsled, luge and hockey, it’s either X Games on steroids or figure skating that’s more boring than watching ice melt.

And then there’s curling. It’s essentially shuffleboard on ice by people who look more like bowlers than athletes. big deal I’d much rather watch an Eskimo Pie eating contest. Don’t laugh. Much of the Winter Olympics menu is made-up novelty competitions.

The Winter Olympics were created to cut countries who are mostly frozen tundra a break because they’re terrible at real sports thanks to fields too slippery to practice on.

After all, when’s the last time a guy from Lapland quarterbacked in the Super Bowl or pitched in Game 7 of the World Series or won the Masters or reached the Wimbledon final? I rest my case.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, maybe it’s just me but is Joe Burrow the only reason the Cincinnati Bengals are in this year’s Grand Spectacle? The Bengals were the Bungles for about 317 years until they drafted this kid.

The Los Angeles Rams, who traded away all their future No. 1 draft picks into the next century just to stockpile this year’s team with superstars, are favored to win the Super Bowl.

So what? Even though Cincinnati’s offensive line couldn’t block a hat let alone that ferocious Los Angeles pass rush, destiny is riding on the rocket right arm of Burrow.

Only two quarterbacks have ever won a national championship in college and the Super Bowl. A couple of Joes in Namath with Alabama and the New York Jets and Montana with Notre Dame and the San Francisco 49ers.

FYI, Burrow won a national championship at LSU. Talk about an omen jumping up and slapping you in the face. Want to bet a cup of Joe on this Joe joining Namath and Montana in pulling off a college/pro championship tandem?

Maybe it’s just me but why doesn’t the Super Bowl halftime entertainment ever feature Snoop Dogg rapping Tennyson’s poetry about the British cavalry?

Maybe it’s just me but isn’t it way past time we stop making Americans file federal, state and local income taxes?

Just deduct the taxes from our paychecks and be done with it. I’ll gladly live without a tax return if you spare me the paperwork. Better yet, let our rich Uncle Sam automatically send all of us a healthy tax refund and let Joe Biden worry about inflation soaring like a Jeff Bezos rocket.

Maybe it’s just me but I found it hard to feel sorry for the folks at the Jersey shore who got buried up to their eyebrows in snow last weekend. How many times have we long-suffering folks in Berks County been entombed in an avalanche while the beachcombers only got rain?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that people who don’t sweat anything never have dehydrated spirits?

Maybe it’s just me but why do women need bedroom closets bigger than Japan?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that promise and fulfillment don’t always share the same zip code?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that the night becomes crowded with hostile voices and vices in hard, mean neighborhoods known to erupt in anarchy?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever wonder why salesmen whose line is doorknobs never sell door to door?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever feel an arctic wind shake a joist or beam loose in your spinal infrastructure?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that people whose ego is their personal chauffeur never seem to go anywhere?

Maybe it’s just me but do politicians ever get tired of pounding the pudding out of one another?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that guys with broad shoulders have trouble finding work as a chimney sweep?

Maybe it’s just me but did you ever notice that life has a darker side when viewed through the neon prism of a cocktail lounge?

Mike Zielinski, a resident of Berks County, is a columnist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

The post Reflections column – What’s so riveting in regards to the Winter Olympics? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

In the sign of the times, the Sundance Film Festival announced today that it will go live in 2022.

The original plan was to hold the prestigious indie festival founded by Robert Redford in 1981 in a hybrid form, with a combination of online events and “personal Utah elements”. Unfortunately, all that has changed with the Omicron variant. This is what the organizers say in the announcement:

“We were looking forward to our first full hybrid Sundance Film Festival and our teams spent a year planning a festival like no other. But despite the most ambitious protocols, the Omicron variant, with its unexpectedly high transmission rates across the country, is reaching the limits of health security, travel and other infrastructures. And so we announce today: The personal Utah elements of the festival will go online this year. “

…

“While it is a huge loss not to have a personal experience in Utah, we don’t believe it is safe or doable while overwhelming thousands of artists, audiences, staff, volunteers and partners from around the world for Eleven Day Festival Communities are already struggling to provide basic services. “

The Sundance Film Festival – a program organized by the nonprofit Sundance Institute – is scheduled to begin Thursday, January 2022, and last eleven days.

Like so many arts organizations here in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the country (and in the world), Covid has been an ubiquitous and daunting challenge to live programming.

We hope that these nonprofits can continue to navigate these troubled waters and soon enough achieve the semblance of normalcy we are all looking for.

Main Photo: A still from “Nanny” by Nikyatu Jusu, an official selection of the US Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival 2022. Courtesy of the Sundance Institute.

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An atmospheric river that soaked the San Francisco Bay Area for most of Monday pushed south this afternoon, but the chance for thunderstorms, small hailstones, high altitude snow, and isolated showers remained in the forecast for Monday evening through Tuesday, the shared National Weather Service with.

The continuous rain, which led to flooding on some streets in the Bay Area, subsided on Monday afternoon, and the weather service said the most extreme rain, with sporadic, isolated showers, was likely to be over during the course of the evening. At around 4:30 p.m., blue patches of sky could be seen through the cloud cover over San Francisco.

In the wake of the storm, colder air began to enter the region, creating unstable conditions in the atmosphere and adding the risk of thunderstorms from Monday night to Tuesday morning.

“With these cells, you could see brief hailstorms and heavy rain,” said the weather service forecaster Jeff Lorber. “You could hear the rumble of thunder and see lightning. Thunderstorm activity will not be widespread.”

Inland temperatures are expected to drop to the 30s mark overnight, offering a chance for snow on the region’s highest peaks such as Mount Diablo in East Bay and Mount Hamilton in South Bay.

As the rain subsided over the Bay Area, the storm’s hose of moisture shifted into the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Santa Lucia Mountains along the Big Sur coast.

For the fire area of ​​the CZU Lightning Complex in the districts of Santa Cruz and San Mateo, lightning flood monitoring applies until 10:00 p.m. There is also a watch for burn scars in the Santa Lucia Mountains of Dolan and Coleman from Monday until 1:00 a.m. Tuesday. Precipitation rates of 0.50 to 0.70 inches are expected.

“It’s moving slowly across Monterey Bay down to the Big Sur coast,” said Brayden Murdock, a forecaster with the Meteorological Service. “It will be interesting to see if it stops completely in one place. In some places, up to an inch of rain an hour is recorded.”

A weaker, colder storm is expected to sweep the San Francisco Bay Area Wednesday and Thursday.

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San Francisco’s approach to dealing with COVID-19 has been hailed as a national model. But the economic recovery of the inner city after these strict security measures? Not as much.

Business owners in The City remain frustrated with the slow pace of economic recovery, citing empty office buildings, battered restaurants and a stagnating hotel and convention business.

“We have to find a way to make people feel comfortable and want to return to the Financial District in large numbers,” said Steve Sarver, owner of Ladle & Leaf, a soup and salad joint located between SoMa and downtown.

Some business owners fear another brutal winter as local COVID cases increase. And they are concerned about the town hall’s economic recovery plans or the lack thereof. However, for many city guides, how to move forward on the business problems in downtown San Francisco is still an open question.

“I can’t care why people want or want to be here,” Mayor London Breed told The Examiner when asked about downtown offices that are still vacant. “All I can do is the best I can do to clean up this city so people can feel safe and change people’s hearts and minds in the process. I hope that will happen in time. “

San Francisco was one of eight Bay Area counties to implement an on-site placement order at the start of the pandemic, perhaps one of the most difficult times a San Francisco mayor has faced since the HIV epidemic. The move was later followed by mask requirements and vaccination requirements for food indoors and for all city employees.

The proactive approach has worked for many health interventions: San Francisco had some of the lowest COVID deaths and hospital admissions compared to other major cities in the United States.

But now, Breed stands between maintaining an aggressive COVID security strategy and leading The City to a place where people can relax, work, and visit San Francisco. Even compared to other tech hubs like Austin, San Francisco has seen remote work have a stronger impact, data from the Office of the Controller shows.

“The general story of San Francisco recovering, but not as fast as other places, still holds true,” said Ted Egan, chief economist for San Francisco. “Our office jobs have a high tech focus and it looks like a lot of technicians will be staying out of the office this year. The fact that we have more technology than anywhere else will slow our recovery. “

The loss of foot traffic and tourism has been devastating for many small business owners across San Francisco, but especially for those downtown like Leo Go, owner of Kirimachi Ramen at the Embarcadero Center.

“The business is still pretty flat. We haven’t even recovered 50% of what we lost. Nobody is here in the Financial District, ”said Go, who had to consider closing his business because of the drop in sales. “Because of our location, we don’t have many DoorDash or pick-up orders. That makes it difficult. “

Other companies like Ladle & Leaf are struggling to reopen. Before the pandemic, Ladle & Leaf had 13 locations in the Bay Area. Five reopened and two were permanently closed during the pandemic. Sarver said his business was making less than 20% of pre-pandemic sales.

“The city’s COVID restrictions aren’t doing us any harm because we’re all take-away, but our customers just aren’t there,” Sarver said. “As an entrepreneur, it’s really frustrating. We have invested a tremendous amount in building our restaurants with the expectation that we can operate them. Now our investment in San Francisco is really challenging. “

Back to business or not?

In a recent neighborhood cleanup in Tenderloin, one of the city’s hardest hit communities during the pandemic, Breed downplayed the challenges posed by high office vacancy rates.

Mayor of London Breed participates in a Tenderloin cleanup with volunteers from Nextdoor, a social media company that recently started returning workers to the office part-time. (Sydney Johnson / The Examiner)

The trash collection event brought together Urban Alchemy, The City’s new street ambassador program, and about 50 employees from Nextdoor, a neighborhood-based mid-market-headquartered social media company that has been bringing back employees in person on a part-time basis.

“The people next door are coming back to work and taking the opportunity to invest and clean up here,” said Breed. “It shows that hopefully they are part of the community and not just come here to work and then hide.”

But Egan and others say Nextdoor’s decision to return to the office is rare in San Francisco.

“Companies have plans and are trying to bring the workforce back in 2022. It won’t be a complete return, ”said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. “Jobs that were five days a week are now an average of three days a week, with two days being remote.”

The office vacancy rate, which is currently estimated at 20%, has risen steadily since the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020, according to a report by the San Francisco controller in October.

Even most public sector employees return part-time to do personal work. City workers were required to return to work in person at least two days a week after the November 1 deadline for vaccination, with some departments being more frequent.

Adding to the problem is a growing labor shortage due to a variety of factors ranging from fewer customers to the displacement of workers during the pandemic, Egan said.

Entering the endemic

With COVID cases rising moderately again in the Bay Area, the question of what comes next is all the more tricky.

“Everything depends on the trajectory of the virus. When you’re in charge, you want people to be vaccinated and that’s the only way you can really get moving on a large scale again, “said Bellisario, adding that the Bay Area Council, a consortium of local large and medium-sized companies, has encouraged vaccine mandates among the membership workforce.

However, some local health experts say San Francisco is ripe for setting a new example: to overcome pandemic policies once a successful vaccination effort has been made.

“I think we can drop all internal mask regulations now. San Francisco has a really high vaccination rate, ”said Monica Gandhi, who heads the division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at UCSF. “The city shows no optimism or confidence in the vaccines.”

Gandhi believes the emphasis on COVID also detracts from other urgent health emergencies the city is facing, including opioid overdoses that outpaced COVID-19 deaths by three to one in 2020. “It is not a public health job to keep people away from everyone else at this rate anymore,” she said.

Other infectious disease experts disagree, arguing that cutting back on safety measures this winter could accelerate a spike in COVID.

“Now is not the time to talk about removing protective layers when cases are increasing. We’ve seen this record game time and time again, ”said John Swartzberg, clinical professor of public health at the University of California, Berkeley. “We are only a few weeks away from Thanksgiving, and the time will not be good economically for San Francisco, with an increasing number of COVID cases that I believe will be inevitable over the holidays.”

Providing vaccines and booster shots to people who still need them will be critical to both public health and economic recovery, Swartzberg said. Vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds frees more parents from quarantines required if they come into contact with the virus and makes it harder to return to work.

San Francisco and eight other Bay Area counties set criteria in September to trigger changes to health regulations. This includes getting 80% of the county’s residents fully vaccinated, a benchmark that San Francisco achieved prior to the recently expanded immunization eligibility for children ages 5-11.

However, it is unclear whether easing the mask requirement would strengthen areas where the economy is lagging behind. Even after the mask requirement for office work has been relaxed, many companies still allow their employees to work from home. And the San Franciscans continue to spend more time indoors than the state average, according to the controller report.

Sarver of Ladle & Leaf said part of the problem depends on messaging and culture.

“That’s what the city tour has to do,” said Sarver. “It must be desirable that people come to town. Talk about how clean BART is and how good air circulation is. Show evidence that it is safe to drive again. “

The relaxation of mandates could make San Francisco more attractive for conferences, events and tourism again, said Gandhi. The sold out Outside Lands festival shows that there is an appetite for large gatherings.

San Francisco International Airport lost more passengers than 50 other major airports across the country during the pandemic, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The decline took a severe blow to tax revenues in The City, where tourists account for more than half of visitors’ overnight spending.

Meanwhile, cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, and Las Vegas are overtaking San Francisco when it comes to airport travel, hotel income, and office visits.

“It’s important for The City to update their logs. In this way, you invite tourists and people to the city center. They create a livelier place, ”said Gandhi.

A recipe for recovery

With even medical experts disagreeing on a winter public health strategy, answers to the city’s pandemic recovery won’t be easy.

“It’s just an adjustment that we have to get used to. It’s part of reality now. We know what COVID feels like and what it feels like when our city closes. These preventive measures allow us to stay open and secure, ”said Breed.

To offset the slow recovery, The City has launched a handful of small business support programs, including a recently announced plan to waive first year permits, licenses, and registration fees for new small businesses.

It has also pumped $ 42 million into a staff development program that aims to provide vocational training and employment services to nearly 10,000 San Franciscans.

Despite many efforts, the economic recovery in areas such as public transport and tourism is lagging behind the national average, the controller report shows. With flu season and a possible winter COVID surge, the city’s next steps will determine how long it will take to recover.

“A large part of our city’s sales tax is generated by tourists and commuters,” said Egan. “Until we see a recovery in these things, the economy will feel depressed.”

sjohnson@sfexaminer.com

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In San Francisco, the holiday season really is the most wonderful time of the year. The city is aglow with decorations and buzzing with activities and experiences. From San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker to The Art of Banksy, even the Grinch will find something to celebrate in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — In San Francisco, the holiday season really is the most wonderful time of the year. The city is aglow with decorations and buzzing with activities and experiences. No matter where you go in San Francisco, you’ll find something to celebrate this season.

FAMILY FUN

The Safeway Holiday Ice Rink in Union Square
Nov. 3, 2021 – Jan. 17, 2022; https://unionsquareicerink.com
What says “the holidays” more than skating under the sun – or the stars – in Union Square? Since 2008, The Safeway Holiday Ice Rink in Union Square has delighted children and adults with its holiday-themed ice park where everyone can enjoy skating in the iconic plaza surrounded by festive lights and Macy’s giant Christmas tree. The Safeway Holiday Ice Rink’s event roster includes the highly anticipated Drag Queens on Ice, Flashback Fridays, and Polar Bear Skate. Admission is $19 and includes skate rental.

San Francisco Fire Engine Tours
December; https://www.sanfranciscofireenginetours.com
Take in the holiday sights and sounds from a vintage, open-air Mack fire engine with San Francisco Fire Engine Tours. Guests can celebrate the season with Christmas Carols and fun facts as you tour downtown San Francisco, The Embarcadero, and Union Square.

HapPIER Holidays at PIER 39
Nov. 23, 2021 – Jan. 9, 2022; https://www.pier39.com/happierholidays/
PIER 39 is spreading Holiday cheer on San Francisco’s Waterfront! Each night, enjoy the PIER’s tree lighting musical moments on its 60′ Christmas tree which will come to life every half hour from 5pm – 10pm, Nov. 23, 2021 through Jan. 9, 2022. Synchronized to holiday music, the tree transforms into a kaleidoscope of swirling colors, adorned with thousands of specialty lights and ornaments.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Illuminate SF Festival of Light
Nov. 21, 2021 – Jan. 31, 2022; https://illuminatesf.com
Returning for its ninth year, Illuminate SF Festival of Light shines with more than 40 eco-friendly light installations in 17 of the city’s neighborhoods. The light art installations, created by both local and international artists, come to life at dusk each night, making for an illuminating adventure. Some are permanent, but others are fleeting creations that can only be glimpsed during the festival.

Let’s Glow SF
Dec. 3 – Dec. 12, 2021; https://www.downtownsf.org/events/letsglowsf/
Downtown San Francisco will transform into an enchanting, illuminated journey to a dazzling winter wonderland. Downtown SF Night Lights will cover four towering properties throughout San Francisco’s Financial District with first ever multi-night light mapping projection event on the West Coast. This stunning journey of light will feature the works of local artists while celebrating the festive winter season in the heart of San Francisco.

A Christmas Carol at Broadway SF
Nov. 26 – Dec. 26, 2021; https://www.broadwaysf.com
This new imagining of the old Charles Dickens classic recently earned five Tony Awards. The production at Golden Gate Theatre features dazzling staging, moving storytelling, and 12 of your favorite Christmas carols.

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Holiday Program
Dec. 24, 2021; Dec. 10 and 11, 2021; https://www.sfgmc.org
Embrace the delights of the season with beautiful music and a jubilant production of “Home for the Holidays” by San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. The show, in its 32nd year, celebrates the with hilarious and heart-warming songs and merriment – and some mischief. The Chorus is also performing “Holigays Are Here…Again!,” featuring something for everyone, including “Festival Gloria”, “Little Drummer Boy,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” “Los Peces en el Rio,” and “Over the River” with special guests, SFGMC’s very own – Homophonics and The Lollipop Guild!

San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker
Dec. 10 – 30, 2021; https://www.sfballet.org/productions/nutcracker/
Ever since Nutcracker made its American debut on Christmas Eve in 1944 at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, it’s been a beloved holiday tradition. Watch as visions of Sugar Plums—the fairy variety, that is—dance before your eyes when the world-class San Francisco Ballet takes the stage.

San Francisco Symphony’s Holiday Concerts
Throughout December; https://www.sfsymphony.org/Calendar/CYO/Holiday
The acclaimed San Francisco Symphony has something for everyone this season. From traditional performances of Handel’s Messiah and Holiday Brass to a screening of Home Alone with full symphony accompaniment and a New Year’s Eve concert with star of stage and screen Darren Criss, the Symphony is back in a big way.

The Great Dickens Christmas Fair
Dec. 4, 5, 11, 12, 18 and 19, 2021; https://dickensfair.com
Despite having to cancel its customary Victorian London at the Cow Palace Exhibition Halls, this year you can experience Red Barn Productions’ The Great Dickens Christmas Fair in your car, in your home, and under your tree this holiday season! For three weekends, beginning Saturday, Dec. 4 through Sunday, Dec. 19, fans of this beloved holiday tradition will have three ways to experience the Fair’s Dickensian delights.

The Art of Banksy
Nov. 22, 2021 – Jan. 3, 2022; banksyexhibit.com/sanfrancisco
The Art of Banksy—the largest touring exhibition of authentic Banksy artworks sourced from private collectors around the world—announced the San Francisco exhibition will be held at San Francisco’s iconic Palace of Fine Arts. Ticket prices start at $39.99 ($29.99 for children 16 or younger).

The Art of the Brick
From Dec. 4, 2021; https://artofthebrickexhibit.com
This captivating exhibition features intriguing works of art by renowned contemporary artist Nathan Sawaya. The critically acclaimed collection features more than 70 works of art made exclusively from one of the most recognizable toys in the world—the LEGO® brick. Tickets prices start at $29.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
From January 2022; https://sf.harrypottertheplay.com
It may not open until January, but we can’t contain our excitement for the return of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to San Francisco’s Curran. An original story conceived by playwright Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany, and J.K. Rowling herself, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the first and only official Harry Potter tale presented live on stage.

20th Anniversary of SF Sketchfest, the San Francisco Comedy Festival
Jan. 7 – 23, 2022; https://sfsketchfest.com
Celebrating its 20th year, SF Sketchfest will again bring an outstanding program line-up and entertainers to the Bay Area. The multi-day festival, the longest-running comedy festival in the U.S., will take place in venues across the city and feature major comedy stars and the best up-and-coming comedic acts from around the world for non-stop entertainment including sketch, stand-up, music, improv, films, tributes, alternative comedy, live podcasts, and panel discussions. The line-up will be announced Nov. 19, 2021.

HOTELS

Fairmont San Francisco’s Gingerbread House
From Nov. 27; https://www.fairmont-san-francisco.com/holidays
The Fairmont San Francisco’s hotel lobby transforms into a holiday destination. The highlight of this year’s exhibit is a two-story giant Gingerbread House (22-feet-high and 22-feet-wide) adorned in hundreds of pounds of See’s Candies. Located in the hotel’s grand lobby, the event is open to the public and offers guests the opportunity to enjoy complimentary holiday refreshments and heart-warming music while Santa Claus poses for photos. A seasonal Moët Champagne bar will also be open throughout the festive season. An entrance fee of $10 per adult will be collected from non-hotel guests and those who do not hold dining/holiday tea reservations. Net proceeds from entrance fees will be donated to Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area. Accompanied children will be extended complimentary access.

Proper Holiday Package
Nov. 1, 2021 – Jan. 22, 2022; https://www.properhotel.com/san-francisco/
The Proper hotel is packaging a holiday treat for guests this season. Stay at the hotel and receive a $50 dining credit at La Bande or their weekend Nutcracker Afternoon Tea, ice skating tickets and a Hot toddy set-up and nutcracker-inspired dessert amenity.

Hotel Zetta’s Photo Sessions with The Bay Shooters
https://www.viceroyhotelsandresorts.com/zetta
Guests staying at Hotel Zetta can capture their holiday getaway by booking an in-depth photography and editing session with a local expert. In partnership with Bay Shooters, a community of the country’s most talented and up-and-coming photographers and creative individuals, guests are guided around the city to capture images with their personal cameras. After guests spend the day taking photos of various landmarks and viewpoints, they will head back to the hotel to learn how to professionally edit their images. Pricing starts at $550 per person. Includes a three-hour session with a local professional photographer followed by a one-hour editing session.

HOLIDAY DINING EXPERIENCES

Fall into Winter at alley & vine
December; https://www.alleyandvine.com
alley & vine will be adding an optional caviar component to a new and improved six-course seasonal tasting menu. The luxurious menu on its own will cost $185 and for $95, guests can have a total of one ounce of house-cured and sourced caviar incorporated into each course and can add an optional wine pairing.

Hanukkah at One Market Restaurant
Nov. 28 – Dec. 6; https://onemarket.com
Whether you’re looking to dine in or order delivery, One Market’s Hanukkah menu is perfectly suited for intimate celebrations and larger parties. The three-course menu includes Mark ‘n Mike’s matzo ball soup, optional potato latkes, 12-hour smoked beef brisket and sufganiyot (traditional jelly doughnut).

Craft Cocktail Classes at Dirty Habit in Hotel Zelos
https://www.viceroyhotelsandresorts.com/zelos
At Hotel Zelos’ onsite sultry restaurant and lounge, Dirty Habit, guests and locals alike can book a private craft cocktail class with mixology maven Mariza Sabino. Craft cocktail classes include a one-on-one cocktail lesson highlighting a spirit of guests’ choosing. Pricing starts at $250 for one hour.

About San Francisco Travel

The San Francisco Travel Association is the official destination marketing organization for the City and County of San Francisco. Tourism is San Francisco’s largest industry. More than 25.8 million people visited the destination in 2019, spending in excess of $10 billion. More than 82,500 jobs are supported by tourism in San Francisco.

San Francisco is one of the metropolitan areas in the U.S. that has consistently kept Covid-19 largely under control. The COVID-19 Prevention & Enhanced Cleaning Guidelines put forth by the Hotel Council of San Francisco, ensure that our hospitality businesses are adhering to the most elaborate cleaning and safety protocols. San Francisco Travel invites all visitors who are planning to come in 2021 to contribute their part to a safe and enjoyable experience by taking our Safe Travel Pledge.

For information on reservations, activities and more, visit http://www.sftravel.com.

For more about San Francisco, follow on https://www.facebook.com/onlyinSF/, https://www.instagram.com/onlyinsf/ and https://twitter.com/onlyinsf. Please use hashtags #sftravel and #AlwaysSF.

About San Francisco International Airport

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) wants you to Travel Well. SFO works with local, state and federal health officials to protect against COVID-19. Measures include enhanced cleaning protocols, hundreds of hand sanitizer stations, physical barriers, face coverings for everyone and physical distancing. To learn more visit flysfo.com/travel-well.

SFO offers nonstop service to Asia, South Pacific, Europe, Canada, Mexico and across the United States. For up-to-the-minute departure and arrival information, airport maps and details on shopping, dining, cultural exhibitions, ground transportation and more, visit http://www.flysfo.com. Follow us on http://www.twitter.com/flysfo and http://www.facebook.com/flysfo.

United Airlines is the preferred airline of the San Francisco Travel Association.

Note to editors:

Media Contact

Lori Lincoln, San Francisco Travel Association, 4152272603, lori@sftravel.com

SOURCE San Francisco Travel Association

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