Word is circulating that SFMTA and race organizers are planning a significant crackdown on unregistered participants at next year's Bay to Breakers. The gist: if you haven't paid the entry fee and aren't wearing a bib, you're not getting past the race barriers. Period. Drinking? Still fine. Costumes? Go wild. But freeloading your way onto the course? Apparently that era is ending.

One local familiar with the planning put it bluntly: everyone must be a registered participant to enter the race barriers at any point along the course.

Look, we get it from both sides. Bay to Breakers has always been part race, part moving block party, part beautiful San Francisco chaos. The unregistered runners — the "bandits" — are as much a part of the tradition as the tortilla tosses and salmon-upstream runners heading the wrong way. Telling thousands of people they need to cough up registration fees to participate in what many treat as a neighborhood street party is going to be a tough sell.

But here's the fiscal reality: putting on an event of this scale costs real money. Road closures, cleanup crews, emergency services, SFMTA coordination — none of it is free. When tens of thousands of people enjoy the infrastructure of a permitted event without paying in, that's a cost that falls somewhere. Either the registered runners subsidize the bandits, or the city does. And by "the city," we mean you, the taxpayer.

The real question is enforcement. How exactly do you police a 12K race that stretches across the entire city and has historically attracted crowds that treat barriers as suggestions? Are we talking checkpoints? Wristbands? An army of volunteers playing bouncer at Hayes Street?

We're all for personal freedom and a good time, but we're also for people paying their own way. If the city is going to spend resources making this event happen, it's not unreasonable to ask participants to chip in. Just don't be surprised when San Franciscans find creative ways around the barricades anyway.