For eight years, Martha Regidor sold fruit, dried fish and candy at the 24th Street BART Plaza. Last week, however, she said city officials told her she could no longer sell there. She relocated to a different stretch of Mission Street — already crowded with vendors — leaving behind her long-established customer base.
Since the start of May, several longtime food vendors who usually set up on the Mission District’s two BART plazas told El Tecolote they are facing increased pressure from Department of Public Works (DPW) employees to move from their regular vending spots.
Some food vendors have been told to move because their carts are too close to bus stops, fire hydrants, or other restricted zones under city code. Others whose inventory includes prepackaged food and drinks say they’ve received correction notices from DPW, citing them for vending without a permit.
City officials say the enforcement is about sidewalk safety and accessibility, not a crackdown on food vendors themselves. But to many vendors displaced from their longtime spots on the plazas, the result feels the same — and now, they’re organizing in response.
“They don’t want anyone in the plaza,” said María Villegas, who has sold tamales at the 24th BART plaza for four years. “We’re trying to form an organization to see how to protest.”
“We’re just enforcing the rules”
Santiago Lerma, who leads the Mission Street Team at the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management (DEM), said DPW is “strictly enforcing public right-of-way rules.”
“Everyone has to abide by irrespective of the activity,” he told El Tecolote. “If you have a break dancing class you still can’t block the fire hydrant.”
Those rules require food vendors to keep a 12-foot clearance from bus zones, 7 feet from fire hydrants, 6 feet from a path of travel, and 5 feet from curb returns. Vendors who violate those guidelines, Lerma said, are the ones told to move.
“So long as the public right of way is accessible, they’re compliant with any other regulations, there’s no opinion of whether there should be vendors on the plaza or not,” Lerma said.
Lerma said the enforcement is not about targeting food vending specifically — and that the Department of Public Health (DPH), not DPW, is responsible for food permitting. However, he acknowledged that many food vendors are unpermitted and remain vulnerable to citations.
The increase in DPW enforcement, Lerma said, is due to new hires filling a previously short-staffed team: “Now we have enough staff to actually [cover] the plazas continuously throughout the day,” he said.
After years of working alone, food vendors organize
On May 2, Rodrigo López, head of the Mission Street Vendors Association (MSVA), a grassroots group of permitted merchandise vendors, said he received a wave of phone calls from concerned food vendors. That day, DPW staff — escorted by San Francisco Police officers — had told vendors they would have to move from their usual spots on the 24th BART Street Plaza.
“They told us they were giving us 10 minutes, and I went to store things as quickly as I could,” said Javier Molina, who has sold food at the plaza for 15 years. “Later I went back out again. But they’re harassing us too much.”
Though López had previously encouraged food vendors to unite, he said this was the first time they actively reached out asking for help.
“They’re worried because the city already removed merchandise vendors once,” said López. “And we went for approximately eight months without being able to sell on the street in the Mission.”
Last Thursday, López said 33 concerned food vendors met with him for the first time to learn about the city’s rules on street vending and how to protect their rights. Now, he is helping connect the group — which he says doesn’t have a designated leader yet — to other nonprofits in the Mission.
This week and next, MEDA and Fondo Adelante are hosting workshops for food vendors interested in legally establishing mobile food businesses. López is also helping coordinate a meeting between food vendors and city department heads at City Hall on May 22. The goal: push for a simplified permitting process for food vendors.
No clear path forward
As part of the uptick in enforcement activity, some food vendors have been handed flyers from DPW staff outlining how to apply for a merchandise street vending permit. Two have also received correction notices from the city letting them know they are required to obtain a permit.
Lerma said this is typically due to the presence of prepackaged items in their inventory. But prepared foods, which make up the bulk of or all of vendors’ sales, aren’t covered by these permits.
Unlike merchant street vendors, small food sellers have no clear pathway to obtain a city permit unless they make significant investments. Sidewalk vending is decriminalized in California, and the Mission’s vending moratorium only applies to merchandise sellers — but DPH can still confiscate unpermitted food vendors’ food carts.
“We’re given contradictory information,” López said. “There’s no way to get a city permit if you’re a small-cart food vendor.”
Even though DPW does not oversee food regulation directly, vendors say the increased city presence is making many of them nervous.
On Friday, only two vendors — Molina and Villegas — were back at the 24th Street BART Plaza. At the 16th Street BART Plaza, just one fruit vendor remained.
“No one’s here because we were told the city would start enforcing [vending rules] today,” said the vendor, a Peruvian immigrant who requested anonymity. She said she decided to take the risk, worried her fruit would go bad if she didn’t sell it before the weekend.
The woman, who immigrated to the U.S. a year ago, said her vending business allows her to pay rent for a room in a shared apartment in the city, and sometimes, even enough to send back home to her children.
“We’re not a commercial store,” she said. “We’re selling to survive.”
By Monday, she said, other vendors had returned to 16th and Mission Street. But pressure from both DPW and DPH to relocate or obtain permits has continued.
Yesica Prado and Pablo Unzueta contributed to this report.
