- By Andrew Fortin-Caldera | Examiner staff writer
- Nov 27, 2023 (SFExaminer.com)
San Francisco’s ban on Mission Street vendors took effect Monday, with The City unveiling a pair of spaces for permitted sellers that same day.
The ban — Public Works Order No: 208803 — prohibits for the next 90 days vending within a 300-foot radius of a roughly 1.5-mile stretch of Mission Street between 14th and Cesar Chavez streets. Sellers flouting the ban will be asked to move, or else could run the risk of having their items confiscated
In light of temporary stoppage, The City announced it would open two spaces for permitted vendors to legally sell their goods.
The first marketplace, located at 2137 Mission St., opened Monday and will be available to vendors daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The second, located on 24th Street between Capp and Lilac streets, will open on Tuesday during those same hours.
District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen proposed the vending ban last month, citing threats to public workers’ safety and “illegal activities” allegedly stemming from street vending along the corridor.
“I recently learned that DPW workers who enforce the law have been assaulted and had their lives threatened by individuals selling stolen goods on the street,” Ronen said in a newsletter to constituents. “I also found out that DPW workers are wearing bulletproof vests to work and that many workers filed grievances through their union so they no longer had to work in the Mission because they feared for their safety.”
Likewise, Mayor London Breed’s office said the temporary ban was enacted in light of “ongoing safety concerns due to unauthorized vending and illegal activities” that have adversely affected small businesses, residents and vendors who have permits to sell their wares on the sidewalk.
But the ban has drawn fervent criticism from a group of more than 100 sellers who have recently united as the Mission Street Vendors Association. The group contends that the blame for unsafe conditions and rises in crime is unfairly foisted onto street vendors.
Several vendors and community members, including SF Latinx Democratic Club Co-President Kevin Ortiz, gathered at Mission and 24th streets on Monday morning to protest The City’s temporary stoppage and call upon officials to push back the temporary ban.
Ortiz told The Examiner that the ban penalizes the very people it proposes to protect. He added many individuals and families rely heavily on income from street vending, and forcing all vendors — regardless of permit status — from the streets into the two designated marketplaces so close to the holidays is a huge blow to established street sellers who have just stocked up on merchandise in anticipation of a busy and lucrative gift-giving season.
Ortiz also said the two spaces offered by The City would accommodate fewer than half of the roughly 116 permitted sellers that make up the Mission Street Vendors Association.
“Not everyone is going to be able to get a spot, but there’s going to be a demand, and while The City scrambles to try and potentially add other locations, people are going to fall through the cracks,” Ortiz told The Examiner.
Ortiz said vendors acknowledge the potential for illicit street vendors to handle stolen goods and thus foster criminal activity, but said the City’s crackdown is a hasty measure that disproportionately penalizes those who are permitted to sell good on the street.
“This blanket approach, this one-size-fits-all approach, it’s not going to fit for the folks who actually did things the right way,” Ortiz said. “It’s punishing everyone instead of those who might actually be committing illegal activity, and frankly, is a punishment approach the approach we should be leading with?”
The Mission Street Vendors Association asked for city officials to reconsider the ban and delay the moratorium until January in order to allow vendors the opportunity to capitalize on the busy winter holiday season.
The ban on street vending is set to last until Feb. 24. Sidewalk vending was decriminalized in California in 2018 with the passage of Senate Bill 946. Breed said Monday in a thread on X that mayors across the state will propose changes to the law “so the police can handle those who are trafficking in stolen goods and other behavior.”
“While I am incredibly empathetic to the vendors’ situation and constantly fight for economic opportunities for our newcomers, safety in the Mission is paramount and the chaos on the street must end,” Ronen, the District 6 supervisor, said in a prepared statement.
