(a) The City and County of San Francisco (“City”) is committed to supporting the growth of City jobs and providing space for new and expanding businesses, while maintaining public health, safety, and welfare.
(b) United Nations Plaza (“UN Plaza”) is a 1.66-acre public square that is a key entrance point to the City’s busy Civic Center. UN Plaza has longstanding public safety, health, and welfare challenges due in part to unregulated vending and criminal activity in the area. Unregulated vending contributes to congestion at UN Plaza resulting in the obstruction of pedestrian and chair-user access to the public right-of-way, obstruction of first responders’ lines of sight, and concealment of unlawful activity. Unregulated vending at UN Plaza fuels unlawful activity that leads to a high volume of 9-1-1 calls, incident reports, and arrests in and around UN Plaza’s immediate vicinity, including 4,046 calls for service, 168 incident reports, and 62 arrests at UN Plaza, in 2021 alone.
(c) UN Plaza is home to the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market (“Market”), a nonprofit, independent, farmer-operated food justice organization, that has served San Francisco’s low-income Tenderloin neighborhood since 1981. The Market is the largest farmers’ market Electronic Benefits Transfer (“EBT”) program in California, allowing CalFresh, CalWorks, and other cash benefit recipients to access food and cash benefits. Over 20,000 customers rely on the Market for groceries in large part because there are no supermarkets in the Tenderloin neighborhood. Recently, public safety concerns due to unregulated vending and criminal activity have caused the Market to lose five vendors. The unregulated vending and accompanying criminal activity at UN Plaza impact the ability of the City to provide a safe and accessible Market for the public, including families, children, and seniors, as well as the farmers who sell their goods.
(d) UN Plaza is heavily patronized year-round. Pre-pandemic, about 25,000 daily weekday San Francisco Municipal Railway (“MUNI”) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (“BART”) public transit riders would access the Civic Center station near UN Plaza, and about 3,500 City, state, and federal employees would make their way to work by passing through UN Plaza. Ridership on BART and Muni have continued to rebound since the depths of the pandemic, particularly in 2021, as much of the economy has reopened and many members of the community have received the COVID-19 vaccine. Further, congestion at UN Plaza is heightened on days that the Market is in operation.
(e) Vending, because it has a relatively low barrier to entry, encourages entrepreneurship, represents a significant sector of San Francisco’s local economy, and provides economic opportunity for people to support themselves and their families, which is a City priority.
(f) A well-designed vending program is beneficial because it: (1) provides minimum standards for vending, including vendors’ equipment; (2) safeguards pedestrian and chair-user movement on sidewalks, streets, and other public spaces; (3) prevents unsanitary conditions and ensures that trash and debris are removed by vendors; and (4) prevents or minimizes public health, safety, or welfare hazards caused or exacerbated by unregulated vending.
(g) In 2018, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 946 (“SB 946”), which decriminalized street vending across California and constrained local regulatory authority. SB 946 seeks to create entrepreneurial and economic development opportunities for immigrant and low-income communities, increase consumers’ access to desired goods, contribute to a safe and dynamic public space, and promote the safety and welfare of the public by encouraging local authorities to support and properly regulate vending.
(h) The City seeks to prioritize health and safety while expanding economic opportunities for those who aspire to vend lawfully in a manner consistent with SB 946. The City recognizes that regulation of vending benefits the City as a whole, as it leads to orderly commerce and safeguards public health. The City seeks to provide vendors with the ability to operate in a safe and professional manner that enhances the public’s experience while providing increased economic opportunities. To achieve these goals, the City needs to restrict and limit vending in certain areas and under certain circumstances to prevent or minimize public health, safety, and welfare concerns, while ensuring that the permit application process is accessible to all vendors, including vendors with limited business experience and limited English proficiency.
(i) In 2021, the Port of San Francisco initiated a vending program pursuant to Ordinance No. 118-21 to accommodate vending, including vendors’ equipment, while safeguarding pedestrian and chair-user movement on sidewalks, streets, and other public spaces; to prevent unsanitary conditions and ensure trash and debris are removed by vendors; and to protect the scenic and natural character of the Port of San Francisco’s parks and waterfront, and the recreational opportunities the areas provide, to ensure the Port’s streetscape can remain a vibrant and dynamic marketplace, with unparalleled historic, scenic, and recreational value that can be safely enjoyed by all, which program shall be discontinued and merged with the vending program authorized for the City in this ordinance.
(j) This ordinance creates a vending program that provides for permitting and regulation of street vendors on City property that is both meaningfully enforceable and consistent with SB 946.
(Added by Ord. 44-22, File No. 211292, App. 3/22/2022, Eff. 4/22/2022)