SF supes look to fine-tune enforcement of street vending

More than four months after San Francisco imposed a street-vending moratorium on Mission Street , the Board of Supervisors is advancing new rules to improve The City’s enforcement.

The rules come as city leaders grapple with how to bring licensed street vendors back to Mission Street while continuing a clampdown on illegal fencing operations.

“We’re going to move very slowly and very deliberately,” said District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who initially proposed the moratorium and is now sponsoring the updated vending rules.

City officials say the crackdown effort has succeeded in reducing street chaos and illegal activity allegedly connected to vending. But those gains still appear precarious.

Even with the full moratorium in place, illegal vending has persisted in The Mission, Ronen said, underscoring the need for The City to make the most of its scarce enforcement resources.

In the meantime, though, permitted vendors say that their sales have fallen dramatically since the moratorium was introduced in November. The City has offered emergency monetary relief for permitted vendors and opened two temporary markets where they can sell their wares .

Still, vendors have complained that there has been far less foot traffic in those locations than on Mission Street.

“The economic devastation caused by the city ban is now hurting us as vendors — but families and loved ones we support,” said Rodrigo Lopez, president of the Mission Street Vendors Association. He said many members are months behind on rent, while some have lost their homes. Many others, he said, have had to eat into their savings.

Nevertheless, he and other vendors have worked with The City on its updated vending regulations.

“We believe that only together we’ll be able to find the right balance to solve the problems that we are facing,” said Lopez.

Ronen’s proposal — unanimously approved by the board’s Rules Committee on Monday — would tune up vending enforcement throughout The City in several ways.

First, it would remove a requirement that The City’s enforcement teams issue written warnings to vendors lacking permits. Such warnings have been found to be an ineffective tool against highly mobile fencing operations, Ronen said.

Instead, once a warning has been given, cited vendors will have ten minutes to move. If they fail to do so, enforcement officials will have the authority to remove items and place them in storage.

“The game has evolved,” said Michael Lennon, a manager with San Francisco Public Works, which oversees enforcement of vendor regulations.

Whereas before many vendors were stationary, “everybody we see out there, they’re now traveling with suitcases,” Lennon said. “They have bags or blankets and things like that. It seems to be a cat-and-mouse game where they are avoiding police and us.”

The new rules also require that permits include vendors’ photographs so that permits cannot be transferred from one vendor to another. In addition, they would grant Public Works more leeway to amend vending rules.

Ultimately, however, Ronen said she doubts these tweaks to The City’s enforcement rules will be enough on their own.

“It’s not going to massively change the situation on the street,” she said.

Instead, The City needs to invest more in enforcement personnel, she said, while acknowledging that this will be a tricky request amid spiraling deficits.

She’s also advocating for state lawmakers to amend the 2018 legislation that legalized street vending throughout California. As written, that law prevents police officers from enforcing vending rules, further limiting The City’s enforcement muscle, Ronen said.

“It’s been one of the more challenging things that I’ve tried to fix since I’ve been in City Hall, because you literally need constant presence on the streets in order to stop the fencing,” said Ronen. “And we just don’t have enough city workers in DPW doing that type of work.”

In February, The City extended its 90-day Mission Street vending ban for an additional six months, citing a 30% combined decrease in reported assaults and robberies and a 23% decrease in 311 service requests for street cleaning.

Wary that moving too fast could undermine those reported gains, Ronen floated the possibility that the moratorium might be ended via a phased process in which only a portion of vendors would be allowed to return to the Mission Street area at first as The City assessed changes in street conditions.

During Monday’s Rules Committee meeting, permitted vendors and their allies drew a stark line between themselves and those selling illegally.

“We do recognize that we need to change,” said Juan Mendoza, a displaced Mission Street vendor with a permit. “San Francisco needs to be able to bring back order ... What we are asking for is the ability to be able to support our families — to be able to pay our bills.”

Ronen’s proposal will go to the full Board of Supervisors next week.