San Francisco Scrambling to Prevent Victory Garden from Becoming One Big Toilet
October 28, 2008 · Print This Article
The victory garden currently growing in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza was meant as a celebration of local food, planted over the summer as part of the privately sponsored “Slow Food Nation” festival. The garden, which is home to a variety of herbs and veggies, is prized enough by Mayor Gavin Newsom that he decided to pay thousands of dollars a week for security to keep vagrants and drunks from using it as a toilet. Unfortunately, that’s not working out too well.
From SF Gate:
Once the food fest ended in late August, however, the mayor decided to keep the garden going. His office contracted with Jeff Gutierrez Security, a local outfit, to keep an eye on the pea patch from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m.
“If they don’t have security, it will become a toilet,” said one city gardener who was planting a fresh bed of marigolds in the plaza the other day.
Newsom initially planned to keep the garden as part of his drive to turn the Civic Center into a model of green sustainability. But Ballard said it soon became apparent that it “was imprudent to sustain security at that level.”
Now, the garden is set to come out in December. And three weeks ago – after trimming back the level of protection – the security price dropped to about $2,200 a week.
Who wants some tomatoes that smell and taste vaguely of human waste? Yum, yum. It’s a shame that they can’t keep this going, because we’d really love to see more examples of victory gardens in cities across the nation. Call me crazy, but it sounds like some public restrooms are in order. Although I suppose that still wouldn’t stop the dude who just drank seven Jack & Cokes from deciding to unload his burden in the basil.
Link [SF Gate]
Photo credit: Ads of the World
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Well, if they don’t want it to become a human toilet, they need to do more for the high number of homeless people and drug addicts in the city. I live right across the bay 25 minutes by public transit and never heard of it. Too bad they are having a hard time keeping it up.
Yeah… I’ve seen more feces in the past couple months in SF than I ever cared to see.
I miss Chico.
The picture with this had one too many looks until I’d been infected with the pooey humor.