PG&E Grinches Shopping Weekend

Saturday a power outage struck San Francisco at the height of the last Holiday shopping weekend. The response was varied as major retailers shuttered and the traffic snarled...the power failure brought out the creative spirit in many.

--At the Saturday performance of the San Francisco Ballet 's "The Nutcracker" , cast members had resorted to pulling a Christmas tree out of the lobby and onto the stage when electricity failed in a crucial hoisting system that raises the centerpiece conifer on stage. And what little makeup the performers put on in the dark dressing rooms was applied with the aid of flashlights.

"We had the orchestra play Christmas carols," said general manager Lesley Koenig. "The audience loved that. We kept the magic of Christmas."

--At St. Patrick's Catholic church on Mission Street, worshipers gathered in the dark Sunday for the 10:30 a.m. Latin Mass. The only light came from candles and from the sun shining through the mosaic windows of etched images of saints.

Some families will fondly recall the festival of lights spent together in the soft light of their ancestors...this of all the small stories... is the sweetest.

Jeff Fox, a spokesman for St. Francis Memorial Hospital, was hosting a Hanukkah dinner party at his Inner Sunset home when the lights went out Saturday evening. He and his wife finished preparing the pot roast and latkes by candlelight, using their gas stove.

"The kids opened presents by candlelight," he said. Then his 5-year-old daughter, Dara, and her best friend Isabel, 6, put on the matching pajamas they had been given and climbed into bed.

Entertainment and dining were hardest hit.

--Unfortunately for the ticket holders to the 2 p.m. performance of "Cats," the musical did depend on power.

Among that group was 7-year-old Garret Cummins, whose family had driven from Reno to celebrate his big sister Allina's 10th birthday.

"We came here for nothing!" Garett said.

His parents were undeterred -- they headed the family off to the power-full Exploratorium.

--As was Liz Linale, store manager at Cole Fox Hardware on Fourth Street, "We're troopers," she said. "We'll be here when the big earthquake happens, too."

People in the main took it in stride, neighborhood shops and eateries remained open with candles and good cheer.

Of course with the good comes the bad, the stoned,

Shortly after 8 p.m. Saturday, three to five masked men with handguns broke into a medical marijuana clinic in the 400 block of Haight Street, pistol-whipped a person inside and made off with marijuana and money, Fagan said.

Fagan said he wouldn't be surprised if the group of thugs had taken advantage of the power failure to rob the clinic, called Alternative Herbal Health Services.

and the ugly.

Mayor-elect Gavin Newson had the usual Leftie spin,

"Saturday night and Sunday before Christmas," he said. "Just think of a store like Old Navy, the loss in tax revenue to the city."

Ah yes, not the humanity, but the taxes, think of the lost tax revenue.

Posted by feste at December 22, 2003 07:42 AM | TrackBack