A few days before Halloween, while other businesses in San Francisco were putting out bowls of candy for patrons, Jonathan Ojinaga presented a different offering. Instead of M&M’s and Kit Kats, he filled the ceramic skull by the entrance of his restaurant, Azúcar Lounge, with a few dozen metal whistles. Each day, patrons take a few whistles from the bowls.
“It’s a slow trickle,” Ojinaga said. “We get a couple every day.”
Those whistles serve a practical purpose. Azúcar Lounge is one of several “whistle stops,” local establishments handing out whistles to patrons to help them alert their neighbors to activity from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. By following the same whistle code, locals can communicate from afar: Three short whistles signal that ICE is nearby, and one long whistle means that somebody is being detained.
Frameline, the nonprofit behind San Francisco’s annual LGBTQ+ film festival, has stocked whistle stops in the city, with more than 200 whistles in recent weeks. Those stops include Azúcar Lounge in SoMa, Queer Arts Featured in the Castro, and the Roxie Theater and Mother bar in the Mission…