mardi gras in san luis obispo

ive been to a good number of mardi gras in san luis, since my sister was a freshman at cal poly in 1997 till this year i think ive missed it once. every year its been a blast and every year its gained a little more attention from people outside of the local community to the point that people come from LA and SF just to party there this weekend. a few years ago due to the shear mass of people that congregated downtown for the annual parade the city decided to shut it down as a form of crowd control. horrid idea. now they party has gone else where like to apartment complexes like cedar creek and its been crazy the last couple years. crazy but not over the top, now this year in "anticipation" of rowdy crowds cops were brought in cops from 20 different agencies to calm the storm as it were. but of course in typical cop fashion instead of blending with the cowrds to make sure the people obeyed the law and stayed safe they flexed their muscle and blocked off california street so people couple get to cedar from the campus side. a few fundamental reasons why this was a bad idea. it gives people a reason to not like the cops presence. it didn't really black anyone because if they were smart enough they could have just walked around like my friends and i did. it give people a reason to congregate and get obnoxious. this cost the city over $50,000. (http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispotribune/7871551.htm for info) there was a fucking police helicopter flying for hours overhead, FOR WHAT!? like that search light did any good other than to give people a direction to flip a middle finger to and yell fuck the police. this was a sad mardi gras because it just shows how little these agencies understand what their purpose is. do you really thing that all the vandalism that has happened in the past reached $50,000 in damage? i doubt it. city leaders need to get their heads out of their asses and out of our faces and realize that you can not stop mardi gras especially in a town that boasts the largest celebration west of the mississippi. so what you need to do it make san luis safe. have the cops but make their presence and integrated presence, don't line up in full swat roit gear and shoot people with tear gas paintball guns. come on people, i go to community college and i can see that that isn't going to work.