Second saturday goes sour. Crowds, catcalls and killings. Who saw that coming?

Sacramento, CA. -  Second Saturday's once pleasant and refreshing art walk has clearly deteriorated into something less than savory.  This past weekend, Victor Hugo Perez Zavala was shot dead and three others were injured when an unidentified gunperson opened fire in a crowd outside the Streets of London pub in midtown.

As I recall, Second Saturday used to be a mellow, even somewhat classy affair where local artists showcased their works, people tasted wine, live local bands played rock and blues and midtown businesses opened their doors to the roaming pedestrian.  It typically appealed to families, the middle-aged and the artsy crowd, surely drawing it's fair share of underage hooligans and riff raff, but on the whole not serving up anything worse than noise complaints, a whole lot of foot traffic, and something to clean up in the morning.

Now (grinding teeth), riding a bike down J street means taking your life in your hands.  Trying to enter a bar means getting stared down by thick, aggressive men.   The crowd has tripled and the cheerful Birkenstock wearing art and wine snobs (the best kind of snob) seem to be outnumbered ten-to-one by the surly gang affiliate, the high-school dropout/alcoholic, or the chain smoking punk.

Not that I've got anything against drinking, smoking or being surly (there's a time and a place for everything), but I do feel like something once fresh has turned terribly sour.  No longer is Second Saturday about neighbors joining neighbors for a respectable, light hearted stroll through one of the best parts of the city.  Now it’s like a county fair without the rides or animals, or an all ages night club with traffic for 30 square blocks.

What a nightmare; even in theory this scenario terrifies me.  No wonder someone got shot, I'm just surprised it took this long.

If you’ve held a few house parties, you know that there are certain laws of nature governing attendance and how the night unfolds.  It starts at a medium pace with close friends who clearly belong there and who you probably invited personally. You eventually admit there’s plenty of room for everyone, and besides, how often does an opportunity come up to really truly party, right?  So you send out the mass text.  Friends tag along with friends and things proceed to rage.  If conditions are perfect the party goes over swimmingly, everyone has a great time, crashes at 6 am, and we all go to breakfast together one big hung over family.  Happy ending.

On the other hand, the more likely scenario is that once the crowds arrive you realize that you don’t know half the people in your house.  Purses and cell phones go missing, fights break out, a few windows break, and you ultimately pull the cord on it.  It just happens.

Like a party, if Second Saturday’s attendance spikes, if the facilitators loose control, if guests lose respect for each other or have a chip on their shoulder, this is when the fights break out and things get stolen or vandalized.

This shooting has only accelerated the curdling of what was once a nice community event, if not been the catalyst to its downfall. Next month, all the respectable law abiding citizens are going to stay home in fear of their lives while every roughneck from miles arround turns our neighborhood into the Wild West.  Second Saturday may never recover to its former glory even if we take drastic action to clean it up.  It's all downhill from here.

I say burn it down and start over.