The latest effort to tamp down the illegal vending scene in SF is a state-level bill from state Senator Scott Wiener, though it only applies to San Francisco, and Wiener has lined up Mayor Lurie and several SF supervisors to support it.
For at least the last three years now, San Francisco has been struggling with a surge of illegal street vending at certain high-foot traffic street corners in the Mission District, Civic Center, and South of Market. The city has attempted numerous crackdown mechanisms, like trying to permit vendors, a vending moratorium on Mission Street, and even briefly those bizarre fences at 24th and Mission Street. These tactics have all had very mixed results at best, as illegal vending continues to contribute to the existing street chaos of open drug use and homelessness in those areas.
Now state Senator Scott Wiener is proposing a new anti-street vending state law that would give police more powers to cite and arrest illegal vendors, according to the Chronicle. And even though it’s a state law, Mission Local reports it will only apply to San Francisco, and thus Wiener introduced it in SF today, flanked by Mayor Daniel Lurie, and Supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Danny Sauter, and Bilal Mahmood.
“Criminal organizations are fueling retail theft and bringing violence and chaos to our streets, displacing legitimate street vendors, harming local businesses, and undermining public safety,” Wiener said in a press release that was distributed before Monday’s press conference. “The SAFE Streets Act holds these disruptors accountable and allows our communities to flourish.”
The acronym in “SAFE Street Act” stands for “San Francisco Allows Fencing Enforcement on our Streets.”
It’s a different version of a law Wiener tried to get passed last year, but it died in committee. The new proposed law would allow the SF Board of Supervisors to create a list of commonly stolen goods in retail theft operations (deodorant, laundry detergent, etc.). Anyone selling those designated items would need a permit, or proof that they had purchased it. Police will confiscate the goods and issue citations for the first two violations, the third violation would result in a misdemeanor charge, with a possible six-month jail sentence.
There is of course already a vending ban on Mission Street, but it’s not always enforced, particularly at night. And Wiener’s bill (which does not apply to vendors selling prepared food, like the bacon-wrapped hot dog carts) puts more enforcement in the hands of police, instead of Public Works employees.
And really, the only tactic that ever seems to work to discourage this illegal vending is to have police presence at the corners. From a staffing standpoint, it’s not possible to have police stationed at those corners 24/7.
"It’s largely tolerated," one illegal Mission Street vendor told the Chronicle. That vendor admitted to the Chronicle that he was selling shoplifted stuff. "I call it the acquisition and redistribution of needlessly overpriced consumer goods."
And in a strange insight into that illegal vending culture, the Chronicle adds that particular vendor “said he steals products from convenience stores and sells them on the sidewalk to pay for drugs or a new phone, which he loses about every three days."
We’ll see if Wiener’s new law, if it does indeed pass and becomes law, would be any more effective than previous efforts to bust up these vending scenes.
Image: SFGovTV via YouTube
