The ban on street vending along the Mission Street corridor has been extended for six months, Mayor London Breed and District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen announced on Monday.
Officials noted that, to date, the ban has made the Mission corridor safer, cleaner and easier to navigate for locals.
“The progress in the Mission is evident, and a great relief to residents, merchants, and city workers,” wrote Mayor Breed in a press release.
“Our work is far from done,” added Supervisor Ronen. “With a moratorium extension, we can continue to build on the progress we’ve made while supporting our legitimate street vendors with wraparound services, marketing and workforce training.”
The temporary ban was implemented on Nov. 27 of last year — initially for 90 days — along Mission Street, including the 16th and 24th Street BART plazas, to the dismay of many street vendors.
Prior to the ban, many of the neighborhood’s 100-plus permitted vendors would hawk goods — food, clothes, artisanal products — alongside many more unpermitted vendors. With the ban in place, the plazas at 16th and 24th streets are largely free of those selling goods — so long as police or Public Works employees are present.
Earlier in the morning, however, and after police leave in the evening, vendors often return. And, during the day, a handful of vendors continue to sell along the corridor.
For some, the vending ban is detrimental to the culture of the area. “This is the most sterile that I’ve ever seen it,” says Kevin Ortiz, a community activist and co-president of the Latinx Democratic Club, on the neighborhood plazas.
Critics of the vending ban, like Ortiz, lament that it is cutting off a source of income for many locals. “It has disproportionately harmed those who are most vulnerable, our street vendors.”
City officers are out eyeing the plazas to ensure the ban is enforced, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Once they leave, however, the plazas often fill back up with unpermitted vendors, selling what appear to be stolen goods.
The current enforcement schedule from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. will continue, seven days a week, for the duration of the vending ban, according to the mayor’s office.
Data from Public Works and the police department shows a 30 percent decrease in assault and robbery incidents around the 16th Street and 24th Street BART plazas, and a 23 percent decrease in service requests for street cleaning since the vending ban was implemented, the mayor’s office said.
The office also provided results from a survey conducted by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, showing that 76 percent of the 192 surveyed merchants along Mission Street felt the moratorium should continue.
As an alternative for some vendors, the city has provided vending spaces at two nearby locations: La Placita at 24th and Capp streets and El Tiangue, on Mission street between 16th and 17th streets, but vendors have complained that sales are much lower than they were before the moratorium.
They’re still out around my building on 15th and Mission. Sometimes it packed and difficult to walk on the sidewalk.
Permanent ban is needed.
So much trash & stolen property.
“Sterile” is not a word I would ever use to describe the BART plazas…
“City officers are out eyeing the plazas to ensure the ban is enforced, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.”
9 am to 9 am would be better, but I suppose the 9 am to 8 pm hours are the crumbs we’ll have to be satisfied with until we get a government that’s serious about stopping the sale of obviously stolen goods in prominent public thoroughfares.
Perhaps Hillary Ronen can take another taxpayer-funded trip to Japan to figure out how they manage to perform such a complex and onerous task.
No need to travel that far – visit a Japan game at the coming World Cup (I assume they qualify) and witness fans in the stands picking up trash after the game.
The black markets have moved bigger than before to Civic Center after Urban Alchemy and law enforcement go off duty.
Good news. So many shoplifted goods are for sale on the street. We can’t do much to arrest shoplifters, but at least we can make it a tiny bit harder to move the merchandise.
“We can’t do much to arrest shoplifters”
Sure we can.
Campers,
Y’all see ‘Amadeus’ ?
Remember the part where the stick-up-the-butt party killing snobs tried to take Mozart’s music out of a major play and just make the dancers move around with no music ?
It seemed unnatural and I think Mission Avenue w/out vendors is the same.
I’ve been pushing for years for the Mayors to make the cops return permanent Police Kobans to the BART stops and unless the cops don’t do their jobs their permanent presence will solve the Vendor problem.
I also propose adding daily programs with musicians and poets.
so many comments with readers so sure that these street vendors are selling stolen merchandise with no one (including sfpd or ML) providing any supporting evidence.
just hatred for poor people struggling to survive a world at war.
Help us understand where the vendors’ roller suitcases filled with toiletry are from.
Daniel,
The suitcases are from the white van that parks on Caledonia or out of the trunk of a car who got it from a Fence who collects it in a garage or squat where they buy it for ten cents on the dollar and it ends up across from my grocery at 16th and Mission for 50 cents on the dollar.
‘Best’ way to interrupt chain is at start by piloting some form of UBI which worked in Stockton at $500 a month.
Not what you wanted to hear, huh ?
Retired Reform School Teacher here and I’ve watched scene across entire country in my decades of travel and study and work.
I’m well past ‘woke’ and into ‘numb’.
As Gonzalez used to laugh and knock on my skull and say;
“Hello, is there anybody in there.”
lol
h.
Fascinating that the professional Latin@s are going to the mat for law breaking “vendors,” really organized crime enforced fencers, but would also go to the mat to defend the corrupt nonprofit racket’s continued access to city funds if the rabble decided to march on City Hall to shut it down to demand an end to corruption. The contras would sing for their supper and piously demand that the “criminal violence” be stopped and assist the police like they did at Occupy SF.