Castro Halloween: DOA

San Francisco's campaign to end the Castro Halloween party was surprisingly effective.

"People are behaving well. We're happy," Neville Gittens, a police spokesman, said late Wednesday evening. "All of the city's planning and notification is paying off."

By midnight, city workers had taken away the metal police barricades that had lined parts of Castro and Market streets and the crowds had dwindled to about 100 people. Even the city streetsweepers had rolled through the neighborhood.

Many of the neighborhood's bars and restaurants closed early in response to the city's efforts to shut down this year's Halloween bash to avoid a repeat of the rowdiness and violence that led to the shootings of nine people last year. Then an estimated 200,000 people had crowded into the area for the annual party that's often described as "the gay Christmas."

Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the Castro district, was one of the leaders of the effort to kill the party. He walked through the area Wednesday night, his only costume a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead.

I'm a bit shocked that it worked, actually.
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