A party for 200 people that was scheduled to be held in San Francisco on Friday night has been shut down after city officials stepped in to uphold shelter in place rules.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced Wednesday that his office directed the owner of an event space in Potrero Hill to cancel the party, which was still being advertised online as of that morning.
“Putting 200 people together in a club is the exact wrong thing to do right now. It would create a powder keg for this virus to explode across our communities,” said Herrera.
In a letter to the property owner, Herrera says the organizers showed a “callous disregard for the health and safety of San Franciscans in the face of this pandemic.”
Organizer Christian Pineiro says that is not the case. He tells KCBS Radio that he knew what had to be done but was slow to act because he himself has the coronavirus.
“I understand what the city’s doing, I respect it 100%," said Pineiro. "If anything this virus is to be taken serious. This virus is no joke. It’s like no other virus I have ever dealt with before, it’s like no other flu.”
Pineiro says all of his events have been cancelled for weeks, but he hit a technical glitch when he tried to stop sales for this particular event. When the club owners canceled the event on Facebook, he was unable to access the event through Eventbrite to take it down and has been working with the company to remove it manually.
Herrera says despite reports that the events had already been cancelled, it was irresponsible to allow the online listings to stay up.
For his part, Pineiro says he fully supports the measures the city is taking and wants the public to understand how serious the outbreak is. “It started with a high fever of 101.5. Huge headache, probably one of the worst headaches I have ever had in my life. You are super agitated, very short breathing and if you try to take a deep breath your lungs contract, you can’t take a breath and you start coughing nonstop.”
Everyone who bought a ticket will receive a refund, he promised.
A post shared by Christian Pineiro (@christianpresents) on Mar 25, 2020 at 6:07pm PDT




