San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, February 1, 1989
Diane Curtis, Chronicle Staff Writer

"They won't make friends like this," said an angry Fran Soniat, a San Rafael resident who was 35 minutes late for her job as a legal secretary in San Francisco. "I'm all for combatting AIDS, but this is not the way to do it."

Representatives of AIDS groups not involved in the protest, inundated with calls from angry commuters, quickly disavowed the demonstration and said they had never heard of "Stop AIDS Now or Else," the group that staged the protest.

"I am very sorry they felt they had to do it," said Pat Christen, director of policy for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. The demonstration could hurt support for AIDS patients. Many of the people who called about the demonstration threatened to withhold donations to AIDS support groups, she said.

Fifty-five protesters gathered on the sidewalk of the fog-shrouded bridge at 7:30 a.m. and then stepped into the traffic 16 minutes later, during the height of the morning commute, blocking both northbound and southbound lanes.

As the demonstration continued and police and California Highway Patrol officers were called to the scene, Highway 101 became a parking lot from the Richardson Bay Bridge in Mill Valley to the Marina and Richmond districts in San Francisco.

Some commuters sat in their cars or on buses for up to an hour before traffic started moving again. Others pulled off at Sausalito to catch the ferry or have a cup of coffee. Some headed back toward San Rafael and took the two-bridge route - the Richmond-San Rafael and the Bay bridges - into San Francisco.

But most just sat and waited.

Twenty-five protesters - 14 women and 11 men - were arrested and taken to the Hall of Justice. Twenty-four were cited for trespassing and creating a public nuisance. One of the protesters, Karol Jones, 37, of San Francisco, was booked for resisting arrest. All were released from custody.

Bruce Selby, marketing director for the Golden Gate Bridge District, said the protest marked the first time in the bridge's 52-year history that demonstrators have closed the bridge. He said the bridge has been shut down only a handful of other times, mostly because of high winds.

San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos issued a statement saying that although he sympathizes with the demonstrators' cause, "they picked the wrong target."

"The commuters who came over that bridge this morning are as supportive as anyone on AIDS issues," he said. "The demonstration only annoyed and inconvenienced people whose minds do not need changing."

During the demonstration, the protesters, sporting buttons saying, "I Stopped on the Bridge to Stop AIDS," strung a banner across the width of the span reading, "AIDS Genocide/ Silence Death/ Fight Back!" They distributed leaflets calling on commuters to demand that the government step up financing to find a cure for AIDS, provide affordable health care and end campaigns for mandatory testing for the HIV virus.

'DYING ALL AROUND ME'

"We chose the Golden Gate Bridge because we thought that would be the most disruptive to people," said Darla Rucker, spokeswoman for the protesters. "AIDS is disrupting our lives, and until people's lives are disrupted, they don't pay attention. We don't have the time to wait. My friends are dying all around me."

Members of the group said they represented about 150 people with AIDS and friends of people with AIDS.

At an afternoon news conference, the group basked in the attention the protest received. Many people "took time to think about AIDS," said protester Kate Rafael. "If some were angered, others were inspired. The overall impact was positive."

The bridge district's Selby did not take the demonstration lightly.

"We regard something like this as very serious," he said. "If this type of thing is going to become more common, the general feeling is the law should have more teeth in it than it does now."

He said commuters, whose cars number 24,000 during peak hours, are entitled to a free flow of traffic so they can get to their jobs. People in emergency situations, such as pregnant women about to deliver, also have a right to think they can get across the bridge, he said. Selby said bridge officials were delayed in their response to the demonstration because heavy fog blinded officers who keep watch for disturbances or accidents. But from the demonstrators' point of view, Selby said, "they couldn't have picked a better time."

COMMUTERS' REACTIONS

Commuter Paul Murray, a Cotati energy-cost analyst, was so angered by the protest, which stopped his car in the middle of the Waldo Tunnel, he called the police saying he was willing to swear out a complaint. The police, he said, were not interested.

"I'm really pissed off," said a woman in a pink sweat suit who refused to give her name. When traffic started moving after 45 minutes of gridlock, she had rushed to a pay phone at district headquarters to rearrange a schedule suddenly turned topsy-turvy.

"It hinders the cause more than anything," said Don Cornett of Novato, a marine cargo surveyor for the Port of San Francisco. "There are other ways to do it."

Some commuters, however, felt that the delay and inconvenience were a small price to pay for bringing attention to the lack of progress in curing AIDS.

"I support the effort of AIDS victims and supporters to get proper treatment," said Charles Berrard, a technician with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco who lives in Bolinas. The rush-hour demonstration, he said, was "definitely justified."

Miriam Schafter, a San Mateo County social worker, sat in her car in the middle of Waldo Grade traffic listening to a Spanish-language tape, unperturbed about the delay because she had no meetings until after 10 a.m.

"It's fine, it's OK," she said of the protest.

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PHOTO CUTLINE: (1) Some of the protesters forming the human barrier stood beneath the banner they hung across the width of the bridge / BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, (2) Protesters who were arrested at the Golden Gate Bridge were held in a fenced-off area in the Hall of Justice garage / BY SCOTT SOMMERDORF/THE CHRONICLE

CAPTION: PHOTO (2)

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