Residents upset over trash left behind from Outside Lands festival

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Crews are working to finish cleaning up at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park after this weekend's Outside Lands Art and Music Festival that was mostly a hit, but also featured some problems for neighbors and festival goers.

Outside Land has made progress, but has a long way to go. Neighbors say the festival and the city needs to do more to help them deal with the nuisance.

Work crews still have a lot of equipment to tear down, but they have picked up all the garbage. Even though 200,000 people passed through Golden Gate Park for the weekends Outside Lands music festival, there isn't any evidence of trash. But, that is not the case though for the nearby neighborhood.

"I come out this morning to go for my walk and there's trash everywhere," one woman said.

"People are pigs and I hate to say that to pigs because pigs are probably cleaner than people," Kimo said.

Residents say people attending the concert used their yards as trash cans and bathrooms.

This is the concert's seventh year in Golden Gate Park, so some resident are growing more tolerant.

"All in all it wasn't too bad. Only a few people I found urinating in our bushes," Doug Dietz said.

Others are preparing better. Kimo said he and others went out of town for the weekend.

"My next door neighbors went out of town as well and a lot of neighbors left just because they didn't want to deal with the people," Kimo said.

Some are taking action. One woman called the mayor's office and sent pictures of the trash.

"They said they are collecting different complaints and they're going to forward it to the neighborhood commission and to the entertainment commission. I'm hoping that something will be done because I don't want this many people trashing my neighborhood next year," Liz Boeder said.

Some are hoping their pain at least paid off.

"We are just hoping there is a boon for the city. My wife was saying she'd like to see a spreadsheet perhaps of what the city takes in versus what the city puts out to pay for the event," Dietz said.

Outside Lands and San Francisco's Park and Recreation Department have not issued a comment. Police said it was a pretty well-behaved crowd. There weren't any major crime incidents to report during the 3-day festival.

Officers cited about 135 people for trespassing -- hopping a fence or otherwise trying to sneak into the venue without a ticket -- and cited 12 others for public intoxication.

A sobering center had been set up at the festival to treat people who imbibed too much and the dozen citations were issued only to those who were uncooperative with the people working at the center.

Police had said on Saturday that 35 people were detained for scalping tickets. On Monday, 10 people were eventually cited for peddling tickets without a permit.

One person was arrested on suspicion of robbery while another had a felony narcotics arrest.

Considering the tens of thousands of people that attended the festival from Friday to Sunday, police said the number of incidents was relatively minor.

More than 100 artists performed on seven stages throughout Golden Gate Park during this year's festival, which included headliners Kanye West, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Killers and Tiesto.

Bay City News contributed to this story.