SAN FRANCISCO — It's too soon to tell if the party people have won.
But after weeks of civic soul searching from City Hall to cyberspace, it's beginning to look as if Baghdad by the Bay will survive the latest threat to its reputation as the capital of free expression.
For a while, though, it was touch and go here in the city that brought you the Summer of Love, Burning Man and the Folsom Street Fair (the self-proclaimed "granddaddy of all leather events").
The organizers of Bay to Breakers -- the raciest footrace in America -- set off the hand-wringing when they announced last month that nudity, alcohol and floats would be banned from the infamous annual competition, which has transformed over the last 97 years into a Pilsener-fueled party on Pumas.
In any other city in America, it probably wouldn't be necessary to tell participants in a 12-kilometer race that they are not allowed to strip to their running shoes and push a keg in a shopping cart while sipping a tall cold one.
But San Franciscans have spent the last 160 years taking their fun very seriously, and people here in "The City That Knows How" know a threat to their image when they see one.
The response was swift and voluminous. Online communities sprang up overnight in defense of the race and now boast more than 22,000 members. Local newspaper columnists got into the act.
There have been news conferences, closed-door meetings and a Board of Supervisors resolution that was sent to committee Tuesday. The measure urges organizers to come up with a plan to protect neighborhoods from trash and rowdy behavior while "preserving the unique spirit of the race."
"B2B is part of the anarchy of our beloved town," declared Moaya on a Facebook group called Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers. "The problem is with the Taliban like 'residents' who move into bohemain enclaves to be part of the 'charm' and then get all indignant when the boho is on their stoop."
"San Francisco is turning soooooooo PRISSY," rued Mary, in another posting. "Come on you big babies. . . ."
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who sponsored Tuesday's resolution, views the effort to rein in the race as part of "a trend now of trying to suburbanize many of our signature events."
In a city that calls itself "The City," those are fighting words.
