City Plans Strict Controls for Halloween Party

Organizers of the Castro Halloween Street Party plan to greet the expected 300,000 revelers with a more regulated and corporate-sponsored bash this year.

“People who say, ‘This is too strict or too corporate,’ I say, ‘Look, babe, if we hadn’t done anything more pro-active this year, I guarantee somebody would have died,’ ” said Terrance Alan, who heads the San Francisco Entertainment Commission and the San Francisco Late Night Coalition.

The organizers came together after a chaotic 2002 celebration in which five people were stabbed, dozens went to hospital emergency rooms and a man with a working chain saw wandered through the crowd.

More than 250 uniformed police and gang task force officers and about 50 undercover vice cops and state Alcohol Beverage Control agents will be enforcing the city ban on open containers. Violators could face $90 fines.