For most of America, San Francisco is the kooky place where anything goes. Last week when the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution in favor of “Meatless Mondays,” the eyerolls that followed were punctuated by the fact that our fair city had beaten them to the punch by two years. As an editorial by the Los Angeles Daily News noted sarcastically, “A lot of L.A. residents must be thinking: Great, we’re catching up to San Francisco.”

Luckily, here in San Francisco, we get to say, “Thank God for Berkeley.” Supporters of the recent ban on most nudity frequently pointed out that free-speech-loving Berkeley has had a similar law in place for years.

Not wishing to reciprocate, Berkeley dwellers looked to San Francisco when, on Election Day, they narrowly rejected a sit-lie ordinance similar to ours. In the voter guide, opponents of the measure noted a San Francisco city controller’s report on the law’s ineffectiveness and warned that Berkeley shouldn’t be “imitating other
cities’ failures.”  

Some days it seems like no city wants to catch up to San Francisco.

Bay Area NewsColumnistsLocalMelissa GriffinSan Francisco