National Park Service

National Parks To Get Major Food Makeover

Culinary offerings in America's national parks are about to get a lot tastier. A new initiative announced by the National Park Service last week outlines guidelines for healthier concessions in parks, including the use of local, sustainably produced foods whenever possible, reports the Washington Po ... More >>

Shuck and Jive: Drakes Bay Oyster Company Forces a Redefinition of Environmentalism

Man Sues National Park Service After Getting Tased by a Ranger

On January 29, 2012, Gary Hesterberg went for a run through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Montara. He brought along his two dogs, a beagle, which was on a leash, and a rat terrier, which was not. A month-old policy prohibited unleashed dogs at the park, though, so Ranger Sarah Cavallar ... More >>

Sharp Park: When a Golf Course Counts as a Natural Area

March Literary Events

Samuel P. Taylor, Tomales Bay State Parks to Stay Open with Help from Feds

​State and federal authorities announced today that two popular Marin County state parks will remain open with the help of the National Park Service.Samuel P. Taylor State Park, a campground nestled among redwoods in West Marin, and Tomales Bay State Park, which lies on the shore of its eponymous ... More >>

Louis' Restaurant Lives to Grill Again

Rosencruz SumeraHello again ... ​The amber tile motif in the bathroom of Louis' Restaurant was the 1970s, every bit as much as the five-note theme of Close Encounters, Oscar Gamble's 'fro, or all the places Dirty Harry shot people that aren't there anymore.   Well, the tile is gone. In o ... More >>

Awesome Secret Underground Bunker in Marin Headlands Gets Sealed Up

A Last Visit Inside the Secret Marin Headlands Bunker (Slideshow)

SF Weekly's Peter Jamison gives readers an account of a secret concrete bunker built in reaction to the threat of invasion via the Pacific Ocean in the runup to World War II. This San Francisco relic, known as Battery Construction 129, was never fully built, yet it's mystique and "off-limits" statu ... More >>

Go for a Swim, No More Great White Shark Sightings at Stinson Beach

There's nothing to worry about ​Just in time for the weekend, park officials have lifted the ban on deep-water swimming at Stinson Beach after a great white shark was spotted on Sunday. Alex Picavet, spokeswoman with the National Park Service told reporters that they are set to impose any more res ... More >>

New Offleash Laws to Favor Dog Walkers Who Make a Profit

Get ready for a lot more of this.​The San Francisco Board of Supervisors might gripe about the seemingly onerous plan to severely restrict dogs from roaming offleash in areas owned by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. But when it comes to that key question of how to handle dogwalkers who h ... More >>

Federal Government Shutdown: Will You Be Kicked Off Ocean Beach?

Going, going ... gone?​With the specter of a federal shutdown looming tomorrow, San Franciscans have reason to worry. If our government ceases operating and everyone heads to the beach -- will we be able to head to the beach? Ocean Beach, after all, is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation A ... More >>

Native American Bones Found at S.F. State

Time to go back home..​School officials came across a box of unidentified Native American bones at San Francisco State University -- a discovery that has triggered a federal law that says human remains must be returned to their Indian tribe.S.F. State officials recently conducted a human remains s ... More >>

Mehdi Almotahari, Washed Up at Fort Mason

Body found​Medical authorities have identified the man whose body washed up on the shores of Fort Mason last week as 64-year-old Mehdi Almotahari. A visitor at Fort Mason spotted Almotahari's body floating in the water at about 4:45 p.m. on March 8. Medical authorities had trouble locating his fam ... More >>

SF Dog Politics Comes Unleashed; Rally Planned Next Week

Even Cujo might be too squeamish for these meetings​For those with a taste for the bitter, litigious, and inordinately complex world of San Francisco dog politics, there's a lot to look forward to over the next few days.Two of the four public meetings planned by National Park Service officials on ... More >>

Boyle-ing Over

Scott Wiener Takes Up Cause of Anti-Leash Activists

And so it begins​One of the more puzzling aspects of San Francisco politics is the bizarre level of conflict that arises with any discussion of dogs. The prolonged internecine conflict between those who wish to run their dogs free and advocates of more restrictive leash laws has periodically convu ... More >>

BASE Jumper Ammon McNeely Jumps Off Bay Area Tower (VIDEO)

SF Weekly cameras tagged along while Ammon McNeely from this week's feature story jumped off a tower in the Bay Area. Check out these other videos about McNeely on the web, too:

Are Oysters Dying Out?

No more oysters? Zut alors!​Oysters can definitively be counted among Things San Franciscans Love. Whether opening our wallets for those tasty bivalves at the Ferry Building or taking a Zipcar up to Tomales Bay for a picnic of raw shellfish, we show our love for the oyster in countless ways.So it ... More >>

"Hamlet": We Players stages a dramatically impressive version on Alcatraz

Grub Hollers Cummingitit, Louis' Restaurant Keeps Lease (and Awkward Apostrophe)

​ ​The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco restaurant scene.In the "It's about time" category of restaurant openings (cf: Bar Agricole), Urban Daddy SF announces the arrival of Grub (758 Valencia, at 18th St., 431-4782) on Friday. The pitch: Upscale din ... More >>

Mount Sutro battle pits tree lovers against native-plant lovers

Do You Have First Amendment Rights in San Francisco Parks or Not?

Now valid in National Parks! Right?​Jurisdictional lines are funny things. Here in San Francisco you can hoist your banners and beat your drum to express the message of your choosing per your First Amendment Rights -- until you tread onto Ocean Beach, the Presidio, or other federal land. The Natio ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

Investigators to Inspect Dead Couple's Beached Boat

View Larger MapNational Park Service investigators will be poring over the 33-foot boat of a couple killed yesterday off Ocean Beach in an attempt to answer what compelled a middle-aged couple to head overboard to their deaths. "We don't know why the boat was in distress and we don't know why the pe ... More >>

End Near for Louis' Restaurant -- Since 1960s

Rosencruz SumeraGetting yanked around by landlords is longstanding tradition at Louis'​Tom Hontalas began washing dishes in his dad's restaurant in 1968  for 50 cents an hour. Now, along with his brother, Bill, he owns Louis' Restaurant and cooks the meals. It's the only job he's ever had. A ... More >>

Sutro Heights Diner Tries to Stay Alive

FacebookThe Hontalas family wants a long-term lease.​Our favorite morsel from the blogs. Saving Louis': We all say we love family-owned businesses right? Here's our chance to support one that seems in trouble of disappearing. Louis' restaurant ― the place on Point Lobos up the hill from the ... More >>

Unleashed

A brutal dog attack in Nob Hill has revived the city's battle over canine control. Here's why it's going to get worse.

Feds take the fun out of fungi hunting at Lands End

Tenderloin Listed as Federal Historic District

Not your average national park visitorsOne of San Francisco's most notoriously downtrodden neighborhoods has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places, a distinction that -- in addition to giving the neighborhood some welcome positive attention -- brings the potential for federal tax c ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

An Inconvenient Plant

One of the world's rarest plants grows in the Presidio. Plans are under way to save it — and ax thousands of trees in the process.

What You Do with a Drunken Sailor

Mother Nature or Nurture?

The question of whether to begin saving creatures and habitats from climate change

Picket Up

Fire Fighting

The Nature of Politics

Dog owners, compliant pols viciously distort a reasonable attempt to preserve our environmental legacy

Best Local Version of Machu Picchu

Batteries Chamberlain, Crosby, Cranston, Marcus Miller, and Boutelle

Riff Raff

Ghost Museum

Letters

Bag It, Larry

No one seems to want a grocery store in the Presidio except Larry Buck

Night+Day

Between a Rock and a ... Rock

Environmental testing in the Presidio may be a Sisyphean task

The House of Tudor

When the Bay was Groun Zero

A look at the Cold War ghosts that haunt the rim of the city

Night Crawler

Off-Base (Part II)

The most vituperative battle ever fought over the Presidio pits a handful of activists (and a certain weekly newspaper) against a local coalition of environmentalists, business, and the majority of elected officials. Is the congressional compromise to es

Off-Base (Part I)

The most vituperative battle ever fought over the Presidio pits a handful of activists (and a certain weekly newspaper) against a local coalition of environmentalists, business, and the majority of elected officials. Is the congressional compromise to es