The 31st annual César Chávez Day Parade and Festival brought hundreds of union members, activists and residents to San Francisco’s Mission District to honor the labor leader’s legacy in fighting for farmworker rights across the country. It was also a rare opportunity for displaced, permitted street vendors to sell in a bustling environment.
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After the city issued a 90-day vending ban late November to combat the illegal fencing of stolen goods along Mission Street, nearly 140 permitted vendors lost access to a highly-trafficked area with paying customers. The ban was deemed a success by Mayor London Breed, who extended it until August 27.
“Sales fell, my economy fell … everything fell,” said Luis Ledesma, a licensed street vendor who, for over a decade, would sell jewelry on Mission Street. Before the ban, Ledesma said he’d earn about $1,300 in sales a week. When he tried to sell at El Tiangue, one of two city-sanctioned vending spots, his sales dropped to about $25 a week. He says the steep decrease in income pushed him, his wife and two-year-old daughter into homelessness. They now sleep at a shelter.
El Tiangue, located at 2137 Mission Street, will soon close because it never developed a meaningful clientele. The remaining city-sanctioned vending spot, La Placita, off 24th and Capp Streets, hosts only a handful of displaced street vendors, and is also failing to draw customers.
Ledesma’s experience echoes the stories of other permitted street vendors during the festival, who say they have been wrongly targeted by the city’s effort to combat public safety concerns on Mission Street.
“Between day and night, they [the city] took our spaces,” said Idalía Lopez, who has been selling plush toys, bucket hats and other children’s goods on Mission Street for more than a decade. Lopez said she invested most of her earnings last year back into her business for the holiday season. Then the ban went into effect, and she was unable to regain her investments.
As hundreds of people marched and chanted “sí se puede” from Dolores Park to 24th Street, Ledesma and Lopez were among several dozen street vendors that were stationed along Folsom and Bryant Street, hoping to lure people from the crowds for a sale.
“We are in limbo,” Lopez said from her vending booth.
