Sen. Scott Wiener’s legislation to allow the police department to enforce street-vending regulations moved forward on Tuesday afternoon after a unanimous vote by the state’s 38 senators in attendance.
SB 276 is Wiener’s second attempt to amend SB 946 for San Francisco County. That 2018 legislation decriminalized vending and requires cities across the state to assign street-vending regulations to a city agency, instead of the police department. In San Francisco, Public Works employees are tasked with enforcement.
The 2018 bill did not anticipate the rampant and chaotic vending that has taken place at the 16th and 24th Street BART plazas since the pandemic.
Last year’s attempt to undo elements of the 2018 bill, SB 925, failed to move past the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee after it was suspended on Aug. 15.
SB 276 now heads to the State Assembly, and will go before two policy committees before landing at the Appropriations Committee, where it died last year.
“With the mayor’s leadership, we’ve seen terrific progress improving San Francisco’s streets, but the sale of stolen goods is still presenting real challenges,” said Wiener in a press release shortly after the vote.
“By holding perpetrators accountable while uplifting our fantastic community of street vendors, restaurants, and bars, these bills help set San Francisco on a path to thriving more brilliantly than ever.”
Since the inception of the first legislation in early 2024, Wiener has said a bill is necessary to combat retail theft and the sale of stolen goods in the Mission District. SB 925 received support from former Mayor London Breed, while its newer iteration, SB 276, has received support from mayor Daniel Lurie.
“SB 276 will uplift our city’s vendors and merchants, while helping us prevent dangerous and illegal reselling of stolen goods. This bill will keep our city and our communities safer,” Lurie said in the same press release.
Under SB 276, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will draft a list of commonly stolen retail items. If a vendor is found in possession of any of these goods and does not have a receipt, then the vendor is subject to a three-strikes system that will result in an infraction for the first two offenses. The third violation could bring misdemeanor charges and up to six months in jail.
The legislation has also enjoyed support from the Mission Street Vendors Association, a group that formed in the wake of the Mission Street vending ban in November 2023. They argue that the bill would allow them to work without competition and harassment from illegal vendors who have in the past physically and verbally attacked Public Works employees.
In an interview with Mission Local on Jan. 9, District 9 supervisor Jackie Fielder said she could not, at the moment, support Wiener’s legislation, over concerns of exposing immigrant communities to law enforcement in the wake of a new Trump administration. On April 23, Fielder doubled down on those concerns.
“We’re seeing, in real time, that the Trump administration is not honoring due process, and is even deporting people that are legally here,” said Fielder, before adding there is a need to bring both retail and food street vending up to code.
“We’ve talked about the red tape on small businesses, home remodels and housing development. The same red tape exists for vendors, both retail and food,” she added.
Thank you Scott Weiner, this cannot come soon enough. How about 1 strike & a serous fine?
Fielder want to keep stolen goods and thieves in business, why the hell did people vote for her? Shes made the Mission a slum and attracted so much crime to the neighborhood.
Fielder is such a reflexive/reactionary maroon.
Just a friendly note — you should look up the definition of both of those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Breed and Ronen made the Mission a slum, but Fielder’s not doing much of anything to reverse course.
None of you mealy mouths have any actual observations or suggestions, just more political tripe one-liners. As if a single newly elected BOS member is expected to 180 reverse the course that took decades to build?
Get real tools.
Get real Fielder, listen to the people living there, they don’t that mayhem anymore..stop protecting thieves and deplorables. they all come here in the mission because they know they are protected.
Thieves are actually not protected by the BOS. “Deplorables” is a broad bucket you might find yourself in with such dull and anti-informational commentary.
I’d still love to know why the police aren’t currently able to enforce the existing laws related to stolen goods. I just don’t see anything changing as a result of this additional law.
How is it that the police in SF cannot find loopholes for Senate Bill 946? I’m in La Canada, in SoCal. When I have contacted the Sheriff to report illegal sidewalk vendors, deputies moved in to quickly remove them. It’s hard to believe that there isn’t some catch-all code like disorderly conduct that can be used for removing illegal sidewalk vendors.
Doing things illegally risks lawsuits. Some places are less risk averse.
It’s hard to understand Jackie Fielder’s position as anything but a desire to continue the status quo.
It’s hard to understand things when you make zero effort to do that, yes.
Thanks for reporting.
Persons should be able to sell items if they can demonstrate that they purchased them , and have a business license , pay taxes and are selling them in a designated location approved by the city .
Unfortunately , some are just taking items from Walgreens etc and hawking them .
A few have ruined it for all.
A society without laws and orderly conduct is chaos .
In SF , certain behaviors have been tolerated for too long that ruin it for all.
That Weiner even supports this is suprising.
It must be out of control.
The simple way for migrants to avoid engaging with law enforcement is for them to not illegally vend on the sidewalks.
Let’s liquidate a few city funded poverty nonprofits and use those city resources to stabilize refugees with cash transfers so that they don’t have to vend to survive.
One reason why we got more Trump is that Democrats gave migrants more face time than citizens, voters. Democrats are going to have to re-learn how to engage with residents if they’re to avoid extinction.
San Francisco’s right wing is going out and organizing residents.
San Francisco progressives are closing ranks, ramping up the exclusion criteria in their dwindling coalition, taking pride in being seen ritualistically performing the washing the feet of the most leprous, and shaming those who would have them actually set an innovative, responsive progressive political agenda in ways that resonate with the voters.
No matter what the situation, progs ask “what do most people want?” and resolve to do just the opposite, on principle.
I moved out of the Mission and San Francisco. I live on the peninsula now and life is great!
“The 2018 bill did not anticipate the rampant and chaotic vending that has taken place at the 16th and 24th Street plazas since the pandemic. “
Yes, who could have ever anticipated removing all consequences for illegal activities would… wait for it… lead to rampant illegal activities?
Fielder has no ideas of her own. I wish reporters would ask her for her alternative idea when she’s against the ideas. She voted against the last legislation not because it was bad, but because she wasn’t included in the process. What a selfish lady….
Oscar,
Let me see if I have this right.
Drug dealers in Mexico have the poor make their Fentanyl under threats of murder and rape and the like which makes them criminals in Mexico and when they try to escape they go in hock to more Mexican gangsters who use these hooks to make them sell the crap on the streets of San Francisco or sell cosmetics stolen by local poor blacks mostly hooked on Fentanyl provided to them by other exploited immigrants ?
Did I get anything wrong in that summary ?
The answer as I’ve said here many times is to do what they do in Casablanca and Istanbul and mark off spots for Legal Vendors and let them police their territories as a community counting on undercover cops to ID those selling goods.
It’s worked for a thousand years in Africa and Asia.
go Niners !!
h.