Employee “won’t be able to continue working for SF Social,” says company director

A group of kickballers associated with the recreation company SF Social Sports attempted to kick lazing denizens off the lawn at Dolores Park Thursday evening, allegedly threatening to call the police because they had reserved the park.

That’s according to several witnesses who tweeted out photos and accounts of the incident.

“These idiots are trying to kick everyone out of Dolores Park, saying, ‘they bought the park’ for a kickball game,” tweeted Jack Morse, a writer for the news site Mashable.

In the tweets, Morse said he talked to some staff, who said the organizer of the kickball event was SF Social.

These idiots are trying to kick everyone out of Dolores Park saying “they bought the park” for a kickball game. pic.twitter.com/fN6yca0lW6 — Jack (@jmorse_) March 30, 2018

In some photos, the kickballers were, indeed, wearing shirts emblazoned with the URL: www.sfsocialsports.com.

Another witness, Kevin Montgomery, also tweeted about the incident, alleging that the kickballers threatened to call the police because the group had reserved the park.

“These Natty Light-chugging kickball players are calling the cops on *everyone* in Dolores Park,” he tweeted. “They claim the [sic] rented the park for the day and we can’t be here.”

These Natty Light-chugging kickball players are calling the cops on *everyone* in Dolores Park. They claim the rented the park for the day and we can’t be here pic.twitter.com/Lvxen785DA — Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) March 30, 2018

Connie Chan, a spokeswoman for the Recreation and Park Department, initially said that the group did not receive a permit from the department, but upon further inspection, it appears the group was permitted to play there.

She said SF Social has a permit to play sports at Dolores Park Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and has since 2016.

One commenter tweeted that it was the “dropbox thing all over again.”

That was in reference to an incident in fall 2014, when a group of Dropbox employees attempted to kick locals off Mission Playground’s soccer field because they said they had paid for one-hour reservation.

A representative from SF Social responded Friday around noon.

“It was brought to my attention that yesterday one of the part-time refs we hire was harshly speaking to someone at the park, trying to get them to move,” SF Social Sports Director Frank Marcantoni wrote in an email. “That is inexcusable, and we certainly don’t train or encourage our staff to do that.”

He suggested that he would release the ref who intimidated denizens out of the park.

“As the director of the company, I’ll sit down with the individual in question to discuss his actions, and explain why he won’t be able to continue working for SF Social,” he said. “This will take place within a week.”

Calls to police to confirm whether they were called, let alone dispatched, were not immediately returned.