Speaker 3: Asking these vendors at the end of the year, just when the holiday season is happening to suddenly stop working is deeply unfair. Buying from vendors is a part of our culture.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: The mission has just become the latest San Francisco neighborhood to see a major policy shift driven by fears about safety. Today, why street vending has been banned on Mission Street.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: So this ban went into effect on Monday.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman is a reporter for KQED.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: What it does is it basically bans all vending. So anyone selling anything on the street within 300ft of Mission Street from 14th Street to Cesar Chavez. And this ban lasts for 90 days and it could be extended if the city finds reasons to extend it.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I want to understand how we got here, because fights about vending in this area have actually been going on for months. Right. Can you just take us through the events that sort of led to this ban?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: I think it’s important to recognize that there’s basically in this story, there’s two different kinds of vendors. There’s permitted vendors who have gone through a process with the city. They’ve paid money, they’ve gotten a business license. Then there’s this other kind of vendor which are people that are allegedly selling stolen goods. But this ban bans all vendors entirely. This issue of people selling stolen goods and a suggested link to an increase in crime around these markets has really drawn the attention of the city.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: And so in March of 2022, the city passes a law that says if you are going to sell anything on the street, you have to have a permit. And if you are selling things that appear to be new, you have to show that you bought it somewhere. That law also specifically makes the civic center area in downtown San Francisco a no vending zone. And that’s when a lot of people say this presence of this market, of people selling stolen things really increased around the 16th Street and 24th Street Bart station. That situation comes to a head.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: And supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission District, among other neighborhoods, says that she starts getting calls and emails from constituents, people saying they don’t feel safe. And so in July of 2022, Ronen does something pretty drastic. She asks Bart to fence off the Bart Plaza at 24th. And mission supervisor Ronen basically said, you know, I have to do something. This is untenable.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Right. So these barricades came up and there’s also this permitting system that was in place. But vending pretty much continued up until the ban that we’re talking about today. So what set this ban off that we’re seeing right now?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: So DPW, that’s the Department of Public Works. They’re the ones responsible for inspecting these vendors permits. And apparently DPW workers have reported being assaulted, being threatened. Ronen says basically DPW inspectors have come to city hall crying, asking, please, can we not work on Mission Street because they feel that it is so dangerous to work there.
Hillary Ronen: The own city staff of DPW have to wear bullet proof vests to work, have had their lives threatened and have been assaulted.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: And so Ronen made her case at a press conference at 24th Street, Bart Plaza on Monday.
Hillary Ronen: These people have caused a problem in the mission, and it’s a big problem. I hear from all the brick and mortar businesses that are also barely surviving on Mission Street that say that their business is down because you can’t walk down Mission Street and feel safe. I went, I’m going to finish. I have receipt. I receive daily emails and calls to my office of Immigrant residents in the Mission that say they no longer feel comfortable riding 24th Street, Bart or 63 part of the busses here because it’s scary to walk through the chaos in these places and don’t see.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Ronen and the city and DPW. They’re all making this case that there is a direct link between these illegal street vendors and a rise in crime in the neighborhood.
Hillary Ronen: And so we’ve got to do it and start having a safe and calm and clean atmosphere again in the Mission district.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What do we know about whether street vending is actually linked to these fears about crime? As Ronen has been saying.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: There’s a couple of ways they’re making this connection. One is people reacting to sort of this very fluid environment that develops around these Bart plazas where someone shows up and they open up a suitcase and there’s all sorts of things. There’s clothes, there’s detergents, you know, household goods. And people sort of swarm around in. And it’s sort of a very fast it’s almost like the New York Stock Exchange, you know, $5, $10, whatever. And then it kind of goes. And so it’s this very dynamic situation and that has some people feeling unsafe.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Then Ronen’s actually also citing police data. So in this DPW order, it says within the mission and I’m quoting here within the mission police station service area, the intersection of 24th and Mission Street and the intersection of 16th and Mission Street rank as the sites with the highest and second highest number of calls for service. So those are the two areas with the Bart plazas.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: So the order states between October 10th, 2022 and October 10th, 2023, the department received 580 calls for service, four incidents on Mission Street from the area of the ban, basically 14th to Cesar Chavez. And the three most numerous types of calls were assault, battery, petty theft and vandalism. We don’t have the granularity of the data to say this is directly related to street vending or these illegal vending of goods. But I think in large part, this has to do with a perception or an experience of feeling unsafe while being around these markets.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Coming up, how the city made the ban happen and what vendors think about it. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: So how does Ronen actually make this ban happen?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Ronen needed to do two things in order to make this band become a reality. And that’s because in 2018, Street vending was decriminalized in the state of California. The first was to demonstrate that there was a real risk to the safety, health and welfare of the general public in order to get around SB 946. She did that by pulling those records of the DPW workers who reported being assaulted.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: And, you know, working with the city attorney and other city officials to make the case that this was a risk to the general public. The second thing she needed to do that she said she wanted to do in order to get this ban into place, was secure a place for these vendors to go while the mission street ban was in effect.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Azul, I want to ask you about how vendors are feeling about this. What are the vendors that you’ve spoken with or heard from and also advocates saying about this ban, especially the folks in the neighborhood who are very much affected by this?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: The vendors who are calling themselves the Mission Vendors Association. The main calls by these permitted vendors was to wait until after the holidays to put the ban into effect, because for them, they’re saying this is a big time for us to make a lot of money. We rely on this work to support our families, to pay rent, to put food on the table. And this problem has been going on for years. So why now, just before the holidays are we putting this ban into place? They agreed that the situation on Mission Street was not good, and they also want these other vendors who are allegedly selling stolen goods to be moved by police and other city officials.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Because I guess this ban is applying to everyone, including the vendors who’ve legally obtained permits to sell.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Yeah, that was basically the message of Sofia Lopez.
Sofia Lopez: [speaking spanish]
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: She’s a longtime vendor who sells crafts from Central America. She’s been selling in the Mission District, she says, for eight years. And her message was basically, we’re not the ones selling stolen things, so why are you punishing us?
Sofia Lopez: [speaking spanish]
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Sofia Lopez said vendors actually do feel safe in the mission because it’s their home. Other vendors also talked about feeling blindsided and upset that they weren’t directly involved in this decision that affects their neighborhood. Well, it’s interesting how much the word safety keeps coming up in this story. And I’m curious if advocates of these vendors really believe that this ban is going to do what Ronen and the city wants it to do, which is to keep people safe and make people safer?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Yeah. So the question of whether or not not having these vendors around will create more safety is something that’s debated by some of the advocates who are advocating for the vendors.
Hillary Ronen: Safety does not equal the lack of vendors.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: One person who spoke at a press conference the Wednesday before Thanksgiving was Deldelp Medina. She’s the co-president of the San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club. And she basically said we need a safety plan in order to really ensure safety.
Deldelp Medina: Having people be economically viable is what creates safety. So do not conflate the difference between having a safe system for us to be able to walk around in this area with a lack of vendors.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What happens after the end of the 90 days of this ban?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Well, the ban could continue. Ronen says that they are going to be constantly evaluating. And the ban could be extended by a subsequent order on the basis of health, safety and welfare concerns.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I want to talk about what this is going to mean for vendors. Now, as for Sue, I mean, we’re heading into the holiday season. This is such an important time for folks selling goods. What did you hear and and see and what stuck out to you about your conversations with these vendors as we head into the holiday season under this ban?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Yeah, well, there’s a lot of uncertainty. You know, these vendors are basically, at this point, at the whim of the city. Mission Street is a very important place to sell. It’s got high foot traffic. It’s tracks, a lot of tourists, people who are especially interested in perhaps like buying these sorts of crafts that these vendors sell. It is worth it to note that the ban is really only just Mission Street. So the city has basically rented a commercial space for 90 days on Mission Street, right across the street from Clarion Alley. And it has spaces for 48 vendors to sell their stuff. There’s also, I should add, another site at 24th and cap. Apparently it has nine spaces for vendors to use.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: I went to Tiong. That’s the space that the city has rented for these vendors and spoke with Tito Ledesma. He’s a vendor who formerly vended on Mission Street and now is selling in this space. He basically said that he’s only sold $8 worth of stuff today, and some days he could sell as much as 200. So it’s really it appears that it’s impacting his sales already.
Tito Ledesma: [speaking spanish]
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: This is very early on. Ronen and other city officials are pleading with community members to like, please give this a chance. You know, they’re saying share this space on Instagram. Do your holiday shopping here. Let’s try to make this work. But I think the general sentiment is that these vendors really feel like their lives are being upended by this ban.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Azul, thank you so much.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, a reporter for KQED. This 32 minute conversation with Azul was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored this episode and added all the tape. Thanks as well to Nick Altenburg for some of the tape that you heard in this episode. Shout out as well to the rest of the podcast squad here at KQED.
