Watermelon Red Bull margaritas from Blondie’s. Four-ounce pours of dry sake from Cha-Ya. A Villager IPA from Fort Point Beer Co. These are just some of what folks were carrying around a small area of the Mission on Thursday night for the second iteration of Valencia Live!, the city’s latest attempt to revive its economy through public drinking. 

The party took up a three-block section of Valencia Street, from 16th to 19th. It was part of a larger, city-sanctioned “entertainment zone” that extends another two blocks to 21st Street. Granted, the city has been closing streets with regularity since debuting the zones downtown during Oktoberfest, so we should be used to this air of permitted permissiveness by now. But Valencia occupies its own category.

As Mission Local was first to report, it’s the city’s only entertainment zone where the ability to drink in public isn’t tied to a specific event. Valencia Live! served as the launch party, but technically, people may now walk out the door of select bars and restaurants, drinks in hand, every Sunday through Thursday, from noon to midnight. 

It’s hardly a free-for-all: Patrons need a wristband indicating they’re over 21, and they’re not allowed outside the five-block zone. Fridays and Saturdays could be added to the outdoor drinking schedule later, assuming the whole thing doesn’t lead to mayhem.

But — is public drinking fun when the element of danger is gone? Judging by Thursday’s turnout, yes. Despite the blustery weather, fans showed up for Raio de Luz Samba on the Carnaval stage, eating $4 cups of french fries from Taishoken and playing giant versions of Jenga and Connect Four on the asphalt. To take drinks to go, people had to show ID and procure a pink wristband from one of the participating bars — easy to do, as many set up sidewalk booze stands. Yet most wrists seemed bare, with fairly few people clutching cups.

Will, a 36-year-old tech worker and pink-wristbanded Noe Valley resident who was drinking a Tecate from Blondie’s, has quickly become a Valencia Live! regular. “It’s the most entertainment district-y part of the world,” he said. “It’s nice to see all the families with little kids out.”

Jasper and Stuart, Australians who’ve been living in San Francisco for a decade, were nursing Sapporos from Cha-Ya and debating whether to get burritos. “I feel at home,” Stuart said. “I get to live in a slice of Australia over here. It’s wonderful.” 

It was a party, but one keenly aware of national events. At the 19th Street stage outside The Chapel, drag queen Amoura Tease interrupted her own performance to lead the crowd in a raucous protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

In places, the city’s efforts to encourage intoxicant-fueled carousing run right up against its efforts to subdue the same. At the 16th Street BART station plaza, one block from the northern end of Valencia Live!, the city has been cracking down on open substance use and public disorder. This reporter spotted one twentysomething guy carrying a bottle of sauvignon blanc and two cups, boozing it up with impunity, without a wristband.

There were a few kinks. Casanova Lounge, a kitschy dive known for velvet paintings and absurd light fixtures, had been listed as a participating bar, but a bartender said it wouldn’t take part until the next go-round of Valencia Live!, on July 10. And while the designated entertainment zone extends south to 21st Street, Valencia Live! stops at 19th Street. Few people seemed willing to walk the extra block or two to Beehive or Loló. 

But the fun kept going until after sunset. Taqueria La Cumbre, billed as the “birthplace of the Mission-style burrito,” was doing a brisk business in giant, $10 margaritas. The employee behind the counter said he’d sold between 40 and 50, almost all of them to go. San Francisco’s appetite for public drinking appears unquenchable.