Ulloa School pupils making a field trip to the pumpkin patch at 19th and Sloat were caught in the middle of a permit problem with the city. The snag was eventually cleared up.
Posted on 10/25/2005 8:28:22 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO -- All was not well today in the pumpkin patch, where orange vegetable met red tape and nearly got squashed.
"I'm distraught,'' said Cyril Hackett, the proprietor of the patch, tugging on his straw hat. "I still don't know what I'm doing wrong.''
A four-month battle with San Francisco City Hall came to a head this week when the proprietors of the venerable patch at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard were ordered to shut down.
"It's an overgrown, weed-strewn vacant lot filled with garbage,'' said city zoning administrator Lawrence Badiner. "The place is a disaster.''
Also at issue were the illegal extension cords that Hackett was using to light up the modestly scary haunted house, as well as two temporary sheds that Hackett and his aunt, Claire, who goes by the name of Mrs. Pumpkinhead, had neglected to tear down after last year's pumpkin festivities.
On Monday, after a testy neighbor complained for the umpteenth time, two beat cops and a lieutenant visited the patch and laid a letter from City Hall on the Hacketts, ordering them to "hereby suspend further operations'' or pay a $400 daily fine which, at current exchange rates, comes to about 100 pumpkins.
The cops told Hackett that the couple's pumpkin permit was being challenged and that the whole thing would be resolved at a hearing Dec. 7, which made Cyril Hackett laugh.
"That's absurd,'' he said. "Halloween is Monday. By Dec. 7, the pumpkins will be rotten and it will be time for the Christmas trees.''
The Hacketts also run the Christmas tree lot on the same site, because man does not live by pumpkin alone.
Hackett, a saloonkeeper by trade, stood in his checkered farmer shirt and red bandana today while Mrs. Pumpkinhead moped beneath her giant orange pumpkin hat....
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Ulloa School pupils making a field trip to the pumpkin patch at 19th and Sloat were caught in the middle of a permit problem with the city. The snag was eventually cleared up.
Stupid bureaurocracy!!!
...and then added, "what ??? were NOT talking about New Orleans ?
Meanwhile the business who brought in the pumpkins was not worried about the zoning laws, or health codes as their employees urinated in public.
The smell adds a little country flavor to the setting.
Unless you are having sex with the pumpkin, it is not allowed in Sodom by the Bay.
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