The Grateful Dead Didn’t Leave 710 Ashbury—They Were Pushed Out

The Grateful Dead didn’t choose to leave 710 Ashbury Street. A police raid, a neighborhood overwhelmed by 100,000 arrivals, and a drug scene that turned from acid to speed forced the band out of the house that defined them.

In October 1967, San Francisco police raided 710 Ashbury with reporters in tow, arresting Bob Weir and Pigpen McKernan. Four days later, the Diggers staged a mock funeral for the hippie movement on Haight Street. By March 1968, the Grateful Dead played one final farewell show on flatbed trucks — Viola Lee Blues, Smokestack Lightning, Turn On Your Love Light — then cleared out for Marin County. Jerry Garcia moved to Larkspur. The Summer of Love was over.

This documentary traces the real timeline: from the band’s arrival at 710 Ashbury in September 1966, through the Monterey Pop Festival media explosion that brought 100,000 people to a neighborhood built for 5,000, to the October 2nd drug bust that made leaving inevitable.