On the first day of a 90-day vending ban on San Francisco’s Mission Street, uniformed police and Public Works inspectors took to the streets to enforce it — and about 30 vendors hit the streets in protest.
While the two BART plazas where many of the neighborhood’s 100-plus permitted vendors typically sell their wares were largely empty — save for the group of uniformed city officials — a few of those vendors’ tables remained standing with signs protesting the ban.
At 23rd and Mission streets, an unmanned tent and table sat empty with a sign: “I would be selling, but the supervisor restricts vendors with permits.” Another at the BART plaza read: “90 days without work are 90 days without food. Thanks, government.”
A few dozen rallied in protest throughout the morning.
The ban, announced last month by District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, is meant to apply to all forms of street vending along Mission Street, which has in recent years become the site of greater and greater numbers of vendors hawking goods on the sidewalk — both legally and illegally.
The city set up an indoor space dubbed El Tiangue, or “the market,” at 2137 Mission St., and is ushering in vendors during the 90-day ban — though none of the city’s vendors were yet set up to sell there on Monday.
An Office of Economic and Workforce Development spokesperson confirmed that dozens of applications had been approved and could begin selling out of the new space. The several dozen people who attended the Monday morning opening appeared to be scoping the space out — they filled out forms, drank coffee, and asked questions of the various city officials who were present.
“I think there’s a lot of skepticism and fear,” said Susana Rojas, the executive director of Calle 24, which opposes the ban because it fails to “address the root causes” of fencing operations and poor street conditions, she said. Nonetheless, Calle 24 is assisting vendors to apply for spaces at the Tiangue and another area named La Placita at the 24th and Capp parking lot.
Maria De Lourdes Villegas, a clothing and perfume vendor who was present at the opening of the Tiangue today, said in Spanish that she feels “stressed and with many concerns.” The space is small, she said, with tiny taped-off areas for vendors to set up. This is inconvenient, she said: Vendors who share a rented storage space near the 24th Street plaza will now have to lug their equipment several blocks.
Villegas said she will try the new space, but had serious reservations.
Minutes prior, a man stationed just outside El Tiangue began taking clothes from a shopping cart and laying them out onto a tarp on the sidewalk within plain view of three Public Works inspectors and police officers. After a few minutes, the inspectors asked the man to move along with a verbal warning, and he did.
Through the morning, the neon yellow-clad inspectors could be seen posted at the 24th Street plaza, flanked by police officers, gently asking those still selling haphazard collections of items on the sidewalk to pack up.
Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon said that if people refuse to move along, police can move in to enforce noncompliance with a city officer. Street vending was decriminalized by California state law SB-946 in 2018.
Gordon said that three teams of two inspectors each will be out on Mission Street, with a team stationed at each of the two BART plazas, and the third team patrolling the corridor. Those teams will be out on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and on weekends from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“I hope people give this a chance,” Gordon said.
But also Monday — after watching an Aztec dance ceremony blessing the new indoor selling space El Tiangue — many vendors turned around and instead walked the six blocks to the 24th Street plaza to protest the ban. City officials, including Ronen, also went to the plaza to hear them out.
Several permitted vendors, who recently banded together in protest of vending ordinance changes, took turns to plead publicly with Ronen to postpone the ban until the new year. Many have said the city is being indiscriminate, punishing vendors who obtained a permit and those fencing stolen goods alike.
Sofia Lopez, an organizer of the group of vendors, agreed that the neighborhood needed to be cleaned up, referring to the situation at the plaza as a “cochinada,” or a pigsty. But she asked Ronen to put herself in the shoes of each vendor, who rely on Mission Street foot traffic to make sales each day.
“What can we sell if we’re shut up between four walls?” Lopez asked.
Jose Barajas, a flower vendor, sat next to his table where he usually sells bouquets with his wife. Two signs hung from his table criticizing the street vending ban.
“You have to respect it,” Barajas said of the new ban in Spanish — he has no intention of violating it. He said he applied for a permit to sell flowers in El Tiangue, but hadn’t heard back yet. Barajas is considering shifting his booth to sell on a nearby side street.
While vending has been banned on Mission Street, street vendors can continue to obtain permits to sell their wares on other streets of the district, or in other neighborhoods.
= area of vending ban
Vending will be
prohibited on parts
of Erie St and
Woodward St
Woodward St
Valencia St
Guerrero St
Mission St
S Van Ness Ave
Julian Ave
Vending will be
prohibited on the
east side of Julian
Ave, but permitted
vendors will be
allowed on the
west side
BART
Plaza
An indoor market is
planned for permitted
vendors at 17th and
Mission – but it will not
open before the ban
Clarion Alley
Sycamore St
Mission St
Vending will be
prohibited on the
west side of Capp St.
On the east side, it
will “be reviewed on
a case-by-case basis.”
San Carlos St
Mission
Playground
S Van Ness Ave
Valencia St
Barlett St
Between 21st and 22nd
streets, vending will be
prohibited on the east side
of Bartlett St but allowed on
the west side. Further south,
vending on the west side
of Bartlett St will “be reviewed
on a case-by-case basis.”
Mission St
BART
Plaza
Mission St
Most vending directly
on the BART plazas,
as opposed to the
sidewalks next to them,
is banned already
Cesar Chavez St
= area of vending ban
Vending will be
prohibited on parts
of Erie St and
Woodward St
Woodward St
Valencia St
Mission St
S Van Ness Ave
Julian Ave
Vending will
be prohibited
on the east
side of Julian
Ave, but
allowed on
the west side
BART
Plaza
Clarion Alley
Vending will
be prohibited
on the west
side of Capp
St. On the
east side, it
will “be
reviewed on
a case-by
-case basis.”
Sycamore St
Mission St
San Carlos St
Mission
Playground
S Van Ness Ave
Valencia St
Barlett St
Mission St
Between 21st and
22nd streets, vending
will be prohibited on
the east side of Bartlett
St but allowed on the
west side. Further
south, vending on the
west side of Bartlett St
will “be reviewed on
a case-by-case basis.”
BART
Plaza
Mission St
Most vending directly
on the BART plazas,
as opposed to the
sidewalks next to them,
is banned already
Cesar Chavez St
Map by Will Jarrett. Information from Hillary Ronen’s Office. Basemap from Mapbox.
Ronen said the city was “bending over backwards” to accommodate all of the invested groups: from vendors to residents and brick-and-mortar business owners to inspectors with safety concerns. The Office of Economic and Workforce Development is also offering a $1,000 stipend to vendors with children, she said, and other stipends could become available.
“It’s very hard to get control back of the Mission” without a ban, said Ronen, who listened to the vendors and voiced pleas of her own, switching between English and Spanish. She called on residents to shop at El Tiangue, and for vendors to give the new space, rented for 90 days by the city for $100,000, a chance.
But permitted vendors say they are being punished for misbehavior from unpermitted sellers of suspect goods — and for inaction from the city itself in the past year after vendor permit requirements went into effect, purportedly to ease crackdowns on illegal vending.
Another vendor, Milagros Lopez, said she had witnessed police in plain clothes observe and confiscate goods from people selling allegedly stolen items, and wondered why this enforcement didn’t happen more regularly. Lopez said she had a reserved spot to sell at the Tiangue, but knew her competitors would also be there. At the plaza, she said, no one else sells what she does. She said she would rather try different streets.
“I’m pleased to see all the police that are here today, that for a year and a half we’ve never seen,” said Rodrigo, another vendor. “We were alone. This got out of control because no one was here.”
As the protest at the 24th Street plaza dispersed around 12:30 p.m., some vendors went to stand by their empty tables. Others went back to try their luck selling their goods at their usual spots, unsure when they would be told to move along. City officials were nowhere to be seen.