Jun 26, 2026
PG&E Went Dark Across the Castro Thursday Morning
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~4,000
customers without power
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An unplanned PG&E outage knocked out power for nearly 4,000 customers across Castro, Corona Heights, Cole Valley, Clarendon Heights, and Forest Knolls starting just before 10:30 a.m. Thursday, with restoration estimated at 2:30 p.m. — a potential four-hour blackout.
The wrinkle: Power was almost fully restored by 3 p.m., but PG&E gave no cause — and this is the second significant unplanned outage to hit the Castro corridor in less than a week, following a separate 1,600-customer outage the prior Sunday at 4 a.m.
SFist, Jun 25 · Forward
Jun 26, 2026
Estate Planning as an Act of Resistance for Chosen Families
The SF Bay Times publishes a Pride-week guide on why LGBTQ+ individuals — especially those whose families are chosen rather than biological — face specific urgency around wills, trusts, and powers of attorney, with attorney Jay Patrick Greene of Greene Law Firm, P.C. walking through the mechanics.
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Worth knowing: A properly funded revocable living trust keeps assets out of California's probate system — a process that can take 12 to 18 months and rack up significant court and attorney fees, according to Greene.
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San Francisco Bay Times, Jun 26 · Forward
Jun 26, 2026
Meet the New Leader of Openhouse, SF's LGBTQ+ Senior Services Anchor
The SF Bay Times profiles Morey Riordan, who became Executive Director of Openhouse in 2025, leading the San Francisco nonprofit that provides housing, health, and social services to LGBTQ+ older adults — a population with significant ties to the Castro.
Zoom in: Riordan previously served as CEO of Mind Share Partners and founding director of the Transgender Strategy Center — a résumé that signals Openhouse is leaning hard into both mental health and trans-specific advocacy as it navigates a difficult budget cycle for senior and LGBTQ services.
San Francisco Bay Times, Jun 26 · Forward
Jun 23, 2026
SF Public Utilities Boss Dennis Herrera to Retire After 25 Years at City Hall
Dennis Herrera, who has run San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission since 2021 and served as the city's elected city attorney for nearly 20 years before that, announced he will retire this December — closing out a quarter-century run in City Hall.
Why it matters: The PUC manages the water, power, and sewer systems for all of San Francisco — and Herrera is also remembered as the city attorney who championed same-sex marriage in the courts and sued the Trump administration on immigration and healthcare, a legacy with particular resonance for Castro residents.
Mission Local, Jun 23 · Forward
Jun 23, 2026
City Audit: SF Tax Official Steered $10M Contract to a Friend's Company
A city controller's audit — sparked by an SF Standard investigation — found that Tajel Shah, San Francisco's chief assistant treasurer, steered a $10 million contract to manage the city's business-tax systems to a technology company led by her friends.
SF Standard, Jun 23 · Forward
Jun 23, 2026
Supervisor Jackie Fielder Returns to City Hall After Three-Month Mental Health Leave
District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder is back at City Hall after a three-month leave of absence, having checked herself into a hospital following a mental health crisis that she says grew gradually through her first year in office.
What's next: Fielder represents District 9 (Mission/Bernal Heights), not the Castro's District 8 — but she plans to focus on street food vendor regulations, public bathrooms, and conditions at 16th and Mission, issues familiar to anyone who crosses the neighborhood border regularly.
Mission Local, Jun 23 · Forward
Jun 19, 2026
$211 Per Vote: How Saikat Chakrabarti Burned Through $8.8M on His Congressional Run
Saikat Chakrabarti — whose campaign headquarters was at 582 Castro Street — spent approximately $8.85 million on his unsuccessful run for CA-11, translating to $211.30 per vote for 42,049 votes, or just 17.9% of the total cast in the June 2 primary.
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Scott Wiener led with 40.7% of the vote at $61.24 per vote. Connie Chan came second at $25.09 per vote. Chakrabarti's cost-per-vote was more than eight times Chan's.
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The wrinkle: About half of the $8.85M went to digital advertising firm Middle Seat, and Chakrabarti is now backing Connie Chan in November's general.
Mission Local, Jun 18 · Forward
Jun 19, 2026
Bay Area Chefs Win Big at the 2026 James Beard Awards
Michael Tusk of three-Michelin-starred Quince took home the 2026 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef — his second Beard win, fifteen years after his first Best Chef: Pacific prize in 2011.
The hook: Kevin Diedrich of Pacific Cocktail Haven also won for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service, making Monday night in Chicago a strong showing for Bay Area hospitality.
Eater SF, Jun 16 · Forward
Jun 19, 2026
Flock Safety Says No Feds Got Direct Access to SF's License Plate Camera System
Flock Safety, the company operating San Francisco's citywide license plate reader network, denied that federal agencies directly accessed SFPD's camera system — but an internal SFPD audit found the system had been improperly queried hundreds of times by an authorized state user.
What changed: The culprit was the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), whose searches were being shared improperly with federal and out-of-state agencies — prompting SFPD to disable NCRIC and the Western States Information Network's access entirely.
Local News Matters (Bay City News), Jun 18 · Forward
Jun 19, 2026
Mexico Goes 2–0, and the Mission Erupts
Tens of thousands of fans flooded Mission District streets Thursday night after Mexico defeated South Korea 1–0 in the World Cup, pushing the neighborhood's bars — including Kezar Pub and The Napper Tandy — to capacity.
Zoom in: People of Mexican ancestry make up roughly 7.4% of San Francisco's population — about 66,000 residents — and the Mission is the largest Mexican community in the city, making last night's scene something the neighborhood earns every few years.
SF Standard, Jun 18 · Forward
Jun 19, 2026
Three Castro Bars Are Using Facial Recognition at the Door — and Most Patrons Had No Idea
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adlands, Toad Hall, and The Mix — three Castro bars serving a primarily queer clientele — are using Patronscan Guard+ facial-recognition cameras at their doors to verify guests and flag fake IDs, collecting names, addresses, gender data, and behavioral flags that can be shared across a nine-bar network in the neighborhood.
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Why it matters: San Francisco bans facial recognition use by city agencies — but that prohibition does not extend to private businesses, leaving patrons with no legal protection against biometric data collection at the bar door.
Worth knowing: Patronscan has faced class-action litigation in Illinois over unlawful biometric data collection, and patrons at the Castro bars say they were not informed before being photographed.
SFist Food, Jun 16 · Forward
Jun 11, 2026
Frameline Opens Festival Hub Pop-Up in Former Hamburger Mary's Space
Frameline has opened its Frameline50 festival hub pop-up at the former Hamburger Mary's space on 18th Street in the Castro, giving the long-vacant address new life as a box office and community gathering point ahead of the festival's June 17 opening night.
What's next: The hub closes June 14, then reopens June 18–26 during the full festival run, with Castro Theatre serving as the main venue for the world's longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival's historic 50th edition.
Hoodline Castro, Jun 9 · Forward
Jun 11, 2026
The Wild Inside Story of San Francisco's First Gay Film Festival
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ifty years in, 48 Hills published a fresh deep-dive into the founding of San Francisco's first gay film festival — tracing its roots in the early Castro neighborhood scene and the unlikely chain of events that eventually produced what the world now knows as Frameline.
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Why it matters: Timed to Frameline50's 50th anniversary, the piece surfaces archival material and first-person accounts from the festival's founding years — a rare look at how a scrappy Castro-born experiment became the longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival on the planet.
48 Hills, Jun 10 · Forward