this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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The smell of gunpowder hung in the air this morning as residents swept sidewalks and city workers cruised the streets, stained orange from hundreds of fireworks set off around the Mission until late. Empty boxes of roman candles and cherry bombs, bearing names like Crime Scene, Killa 6-inch XXL, High Falutin’, Shotgun Wedding, Low Life and Blond Joke, were stacked high on street corners from Potrero Avenue to Mission Street.

In the aftermath of a typically rowdy San Francisco Fourth of July, many residents said that although it was a wild night, this year’s Fourth wasn’t nearly as destructive as previous years.

But there were injuries. Bryan, a bartender at Pop’s Bar on York and 24th streets, arrived around 5 a.m. today. One of his first customers was a nurse who had toiled all night in San Francisco General Hospital’s emergency room. “She said seven people lost fingers last night,” Bryan recalled.

According to a spokesperson, General Hospital saw six people with “fireworks-related injuries” between July 1 and July 4, with burns and “blast injuries” to hands and eyes. “One patient is in critical condition,” they wrote in an email, “and four are in serious condition with one patient discharged.”

Bryan from Pop’s said the SFPD gave him a warning at 4 p.m. yesterday. “They told me to stay away from the other end of 24th. Said there would be a lot of fireworks, and it sounded like they were going to let them do it as long as it was the Fourth.”

But not a minute past: As the final moments of the holiday wound down, SFPD wasted no time in putting the kibosh on the festivities. Shortly after midnight, Mission Station Captain Thomas Harvey declared an unlawful assembly at 25th and Harrison, near Garfield Square, where many gather annually to set off fireworks and watch sideshows.

Mission Local documented the moment SFPD rushed into the crowd, aiming rubber ball rifles into the crowd and wielding batons, shouting at people to leave the area.

This morning, only some of the previous night’s mayhem remained. According to a Recreation and Parks employee at Garfield Square, Public Works staff was out at 5 a.m. to clear the streets of debris.

Mission residents were pleasantly surprised to wake up to tidier streets. An artist at a tattoo shop on the corner of Treat and 24th said, “this was a lot better than last year,” elaborating that in 2022, “they spray painted nice murals and the church,” gesturing toward St. Peter’s on Alabama Street.

“I heard they didn’t do the big one on Bryant this year, so it was a little less crazy,” said a 25-year Mission resident standing on the corner of 21st and Florida. In past years, she said, groups of people would flock to the intersection of Bryant and 22nd streets to unleash a year’s worth of stockpiled fireworks.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said she takes her children to stay with family in Hayward every Fourth of July, saying she “learned a lesson” several years ago, when Mission fireworks were especially wild.

Back at Pop’s, René Castro, a Mission native, said people come from all over the Bay to join in on fireworks. “They come from East Palo Alto, from Oakland, and they all compete to see who has bigger fireworks.”

Someone at the bar said he’s sold fireworks to people in the city for years. “I got M80s, M100s, M1000s,” he said. This year, he said, sales were much lower than during the pandemic.

Back then, “they had all that unemployment money,” he said. In 2020 to 2022, “sales quadrupled.” Not so much for 2023.

“Usually, the neighborhood comes together the next day to clean it all up,” said Castro. “This year it looks better. The community really wanted to take care of the neighborhood.”

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