Stay Home For Halloween

People are encouraged to stay home for this Halloween, don't come to the Castro. The hundreds of thousands of people who usually attend an annual Halloween street party in the Castro are being warned to stay home or go elsewhere after several episodes of violence in recent years. City officials have advised through fliers, public service announcements and juvenile probation officers that they won't find many treats in the Castro District, home in past years to the largest Halloween happening in the San Francisco Bay area. What they will find are hundreds of extra police officers, shuttered restaurants, stepped up sobriety checks and no bus or train service after 8:30 p.m. The party attracted 200,000 people last year, and nine people were shot toward the end of the night. Four people were stabbed at the party in 2002.

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