SF street vendors protest after ban goes into effect

A 90-day ban on street vending on Mission Street went into effect on Monday, spurring vendors to gather outside the 24th Street Mission BART station to protest. For more than a year, the city has struggled to regulate street vending in the area, including through a permitting system, a gigantic fence around the station and a 25-foot-tall police tower. 

After a California state law decriminalized street vending in 2018, the onus of regulating Mission Street’s vendors fell from the police department to San Francisco Public Works inspectors. While about 100 of the vendors around the Mission have permits to sell their goods legally, many others do not and hawk stolen goods. A series of violent confrontations and threats from illicit vendors led some inspectors to begin wearing bulletproof vests to work, while others asked to be reassigned away from the Mission, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission District, proposed the vending ban as a way to stem violence associated with illicit vending.

At the protest, vendors took turns sharing remarks in Spanish in front of a small crowd and various TV crews. 

Susana Rojas, executive director of neighborhood organization Calle 24, told SFGATE that vendors are concerned that the ban’s timing will hurt them, since the holiday season is when they typically make the most money. Vendors also worry that the ban will fail to adequately address the violent and crowded conditions that they have faced, she said. Vendors had previously asked for the ban to be postponed until the new year.

On the stretch of Mission Street near the station, some vendors taped handwritten signs in their car windows: “I would be vending, but the supervisor has banned me!” one read. A couple of vendors made sales near the BART station in spite of the ban, although far fewer than usual. No vendors worked directly outside the station.

To accommodate the displaced vendors, the city has opened two new vending locations nearby in partnership with Latino-led community organizations Calle 24 and Clecha, respectively. La Placita will operate out of a parking lot on 24th Street, between Capp and Lilac streets, starting Tuesday. El Tiangue, at 2137 Mission St., opened on Monday and can host up to 50 vendors, according to the city. 

“Obviously these programs are aimed to help support our community members during this time,” Rojas said, “but they’re not meant to be a replacement.”