The fences came down last week at the 16th Street BART Plaza for the first time in months, and residents and others passed through, or sat on the steps, taking in the sun. As long as city officials monitored the sites, vendors remained largely absent from both BART plazas.
“It’s working. It’s not perfect, but it’s working,” said District Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who called for the ban at the 16th and 24th Street plazas and along Mission Street. Despite pressure from vendors and a protest march last week, Ronen said the ban will stay in effect for 90 days.
Vendors marching down Mission Street, holding signs and protesting the 90-day street-vending ban. Dec. 8, 2023. Photo by Xueer Lu. 
Vendors marching down Mission Street, holding signs and protesting the 90-day street-vending ban. Dec. 8, 2023. Photo by Xueer Lu. 
Vendors marched down Mission Street from La Placita, and marched all the way to city hall, in protest of Supervisor Hilary Ronen’s 90-day Mission street-vending ban. Dec. 8, 2023. Photo by Xueer Lu. 
Vendors handing over their letter of demands to Mayor’s staff. Dec. 8, 2023. Photo by Xueer Lu.
It remains unclear where many of the vendors have gone, but the sanctioned indoor market El Tiangue at 2137 Mission St. showed signs of life for the first time since the two-week-old ban took effect on Nov. 27. Some 21 vendors, a half dozen taking double spaces, nearly filled the 43 taped-off areas for stalls. Sales were far from robust, but some customers were coming through, getting caramel apples, T-shirts, or a photo with Santa Claus.
The second sanctioned market, La Placita at 24th and Capp streets, has nine stalls, and only two were filled on Saturday. It reopens Tuesday morning.
But the mood was definitely better Sunday at El Tiangue, where organizers gave out decorated holiday cookies, and a Santa Claus figure stood outside blowing white bubbles, emulating snow.
At the Tiangue Market on Mission Street, Sunday, Dec. 10. Photo by Lydia Chávez. 
The caramel apple table at the Mission Street Market, Sunday, Dec. 10. Photo by Lydia Chávez. 
At the Mission Street Market, Sunday, Dec. 10. Photo by Lydia Chávez. 
At the Mission Street Market, Sunday, Dec. 10. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
“I think the business has been better. It’s been a good day so far,” said Jorge and Maria, who used to sell between 22nd and 23rd streets. “It’s convenient if it rains, because we are inside. Before, we had to gather our stuff and go. And here, there’s a bathroom inside.”
Jorge and Maria, who have been at El Tiangue for two weeks, said they are at the market five to six days a week. They said they sold about $90 a day, but the past weekend, they have been selling $200 per day.
It was the same for Franco Gonzalez, who has been vending at El Tiangue since it first opened, and is here five days a week, selling electronics, chargers and speakers. Before the Sunday event, Gonzalez was making about $20 to $40 a day, but this weekend, his sales went up to $80 a day.
Gonzalez said the event “is a good thing, because then the community can know you’re here.”
“At first, we suffered a bit, but it’s becoming better that people can find us,” Gonzalez continued. “Just be patient.”
Marketing campaign kicks off
The city kicked off a fuller marketing campaign Monday to promote more foot traffic, according to Gloria Chan, director of communications at the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. It’s too soon to tell if that campaign will work.
The campaign, called Las Posadas Holiday Shopping campaign, includes a series of events running from December through February of next year. It will include events like the Abuelita cook-off at La Placita on Dec. 15, and Dia De Los Reyes (Three Kings Day) at both markets with food, giveaways and activities for kids on Jan. 6.
The campaign is also supported by the Latino Task Force, Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, Clecha, Mission Loteria, and the Mission Economic Development Agency.
As of Monday morning, flyers were posted on the lamp posts along Mission Street, promoting the indoor market while also emphasizing the street-vending prohibition.
Nubia Mendoza, community outreach manager of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said that 62 vendors have applied for the sanctioned marketplaces, and so far only four have been disqualified for not having street-vending permits or not complying with the city policies.
Out of the 58 approved vendors, however, not all of them decided to move forward and go into El Tiangue, Mendoza noted. Only 24 agreements have been signed for El Tiangue, so 21 in place on Sunday represented close to a full house.
Prior to the ban, Public Works permitted 144 vendors to sell in the Mission District, a starkly different number from the second in line, which is downtown, with six permits issued, according to data provided by Public Works.
Ronen pointed to the ability of vendors to set up shop elsewhere. "The ban is only on one street. We took one street in the entire, massive city," Ronen said.
So far, the ban does indeed seem to be keeping vendors off the BART Plazas, but only as long as the four-person teams from Public Works and the San Francisco Police Department are present. They are in place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the weekends.
The third team roves the Mission corridor while filling in for the plaza teams during breaks, Gordon said.
Despite the Public Works inspectors and police officers stationed at both plazas and patrolling Mission Street, vendors still found places to roll out their goods between 16th and 24th streets. Mostly, they sold goods out of backpacks, rolling carts, and cars. But even these vendors amounted to many fewer than the vendor-filled streets experienced before the ban went into effect.
Eleni Balakrishnan, Annika Hom, Lydia Chávez, and Yujie Zhou contributed to the reporting of the story.
Related to the second paragraph of Mitch’s comment, if this vendor ban is designed, in part, to make the sidewalks passable, it should apply to the storefront businesses on Mission between 23rd and 24th. They create bottlenecks at the most populated part of the street. Why do they get to privatize public space?
This article misses the point: People stealing from Walgreens and then selling on the streets.
Nothing in the article mentioned exactly what the people were selling, was it questionable merchandise? (sometimes with the security stickers still intact) that I have personally seen for sale on a blanket outside 16th & 24th st BART plazas.
This article failed to address the most important part: “does this curb any stealing from local stores if it is not profitable? ”
What kind of *vendors* are we talking about? Are we talking about the florist or the tamale lady? Or are we talking about the crackheads that can’t stop itching themselves while they have a blanket full of items that appear stolen?
Why does somebody have 12 boxes of toothpaste on a blanket for sale? Unless their last name is Colgate, I am suspicious of that.
How can you expect anyone to care about Walgreens after what they did to this city?
A few days ago I was walking down Mission St. and the vending between 14th and 15th wS out of control. It covered the whole west side of the sidewalk and in the middle of it call, easily hidden by all the chaos was a table where a man was weighing nugs of weed and selling them from a big jar. As I walked by he was making a sale to a boy who looked to be about twelve.
I also noticed how many “legit” brick and mortar businesses within the banned vending zone regularly use the sidewalk in front of their businesses to hawk their wares. I’m curious what people think about that, and why that doesn’t seem to have made its way into the conversation.
Comrades,
Now, we need activity in the Plazas.
For $600 a day they can have a Mariachi band.
There are Pedestals for speakers at the 16th Street Plaza.
It’s our Neighborhood Town Square and I want to see Politicians and Preachers and Peddelers too (legal) all revolving around the Police Koban installed by our newly elected Mayor Lurie ??
I think it will be popular. They did this years ago in many Mexican cities and the was bit push-back, then vendors and customers realized it was much better to be out of the weather and have thing centralized. Good luck!
Here’s an idea: Install “vendor meters” instead of parking meters. Vendors pay the meter, instead of getting the permits and jumping through all the other hoops. SF collects the meters and fines whoever doesn’t pay. Seems a much better use of all that expensive street space.
OK, so the downtown is almost dead, shops are failing all over SF, and the SF budget is headed into a black hole. But the Mission still has some life; yet Ronen in all her economic wisdom has decided that moving vendors who are making at $200 per DAY from foot traffic into some city-rented isolated location with no foot traffic is a good idea? How does this pencil out? We have multiple salaried SF workers standing around, she’s spent thousands of dollars to rent these locations. This is beyond absurd.
We have a problem with stolen goods as well as stabbings, shootings and muggings where these vendors congregate.