SAN FRANCISCO CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO HANDLE THE DRUG EPIDEMIC GOING ON IN THE MISSION DISTRICT, AND EVERY BAND-AID SOLUTION HAS RESULTED IN MORE HARM TO STREET VENDORS.
by Joshua Baltodano
January 12, 2024
City Works Employees and SFPD patrolling 24th Bart Street Plaza this week.
Mission District Supervisor Hillary Ronen enacted a ban on all street vending along Mission Street covering 24th Street and 16th Street plazas—encompassing 14th Street all the way to Cesar Chavez this past November 27th, 2023. The ban on street vending is in response to the illegal sale of stolen goods (boosting), and the elephant in the room no one wants to address—countless people using drugs in public including fentanyl, meth, heroin, and other opioids.
During the summer of 2022, both Hillary Ronen and Calle 24 (the Mission District nonprofit that represents the local merchants association including street vendors) erected fences at 24th Bart Station to try and deter people from selling at the plaza, forcing many vendors to sell their goods on the curb. After Calle 24 received community backlash for the decision, they hosted several town halls to ask for public input before being quick to comply with policies from city officials.
The fiasco Sup. Ronen created now is just another short-sighted resolution to try and quell people from using drugs in public. The new ban only allows vendors to sell at designated areas in the Mission District, such as El Triangue off 17th and Mission Street and La Placita off 24th and Capp Street. El Triangue can hold space for up to 43 vendors to set up shop and sell (only 6 show up on a typical day). La Placita has space for up to 9 vendors. In addition to both sites providing space for 52 street vendors, the beloved Frisco clothing store, Made in the City, had a one-time event for vendors in the Excelsior District last month as well.
Unfortunately, despite these efforts, that is not enough space for the 107 registered street vendors, plus countless others without permits, who have been protesting Sup. Ronen’s 90-day ban since she enforced it. The new sites designated for street vending don’t compare to Bart Street plazas, given those spaces are packed daily with thousands of commuters. If we want to keep street vending alive, new policies and practices are needed.
What about the drug usage going on at both 16th and 24th Bart Street Plazas and the sale of illegal goods?
We are in one of the most concerning epidemics of our generation when it comes to opioids. San Francisco already surpassed 752 overdoses since November. At least 80% of those cases were directly related to fentanyl, making 2023 the worst year on record for drug-related fatalities since 2020 when everyone was forced to quarantine. Back then, people were using substances indoors without supervision, which led to hundreds of overdoses in single room occupancies (SROs) downtown. To avoid overdosing, people are using in public spaces again, and while it may make passersby uncomfortable, it allows users to watch over one another and administer Narcan in emergency situations.
And as you might have guessed, the number of opioid users has gone up post-pandemic due to economic insecurity. So users are congregating at busy street markets such as 24th, 16th, and Civic Center Plazas, consuming substances in addition to selling stolen goods to fund their opioid usage. And with many drug users in specific areas, you’ll also have the inevitable addition of dealers supplying. This is what sparked all of Sup. Ronen’s street vendor restrictions, but no one is explicitly talking about it.
To note, not all goods being sold are stolen. Some might be handmade or secondhand. But if your appearance is at all disheveled, chances are you’ll be stigmatized as another booster.
The shift towards restricting street vendors
When Supervisor Hillary Ronen erected fences at 24th Bart Street Plaza in the summer of 2022.
In 2022, residents from the 24th side of the Mission District could be heard saying we don’t want our neighborhood to turn into 16th Bart Station. It created class and generational divides between residents who wanted the area to remain “clean and safe” at any cost to vending and long-time locals who understood the economic need for hustle and bustle to survive.
To appease complaints, Sup. Ronen erected fences at the Bart Plaza hoping it would deter people from the area, but it pushed people to sell on the curbs of the sidewalks. It was during the same time the state of California mandated the legalization of street vending. This is when Sup. Ronen worked with the city to create an SF Permit system, costing $439 annually—in addition to other permit fees if selling food. The permit system has made it more difficult for vendors, especially those who might want to sell items occasionally. Without opportunities to sell in-person, these vendors are left with online platforms like Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist which offer less immediate results.
“Requiring everyone to have a permit license takes up to three weeks, and there is no guarantee you’ll be approved. Why force people to go through all that trouble just to earn $20 to afford a meal?”
Street vendor at 24th Bart Street plaza.
But Sup. Ronen continues to enforce this policy. She now has public works employees checking vendors for permits, and if vendors don’t have them, asking them to leave the space or face being shut down and items confiscated by SFPD. Vendors are told not to come back until they complete the Calle 24 vendor registration process.
When enforcing the permit policy, some public works employees have even been violent, including an incident this past October where a vendor was physically assaulted at Fisherman’s Wharf. The city works employee, Jondelle Bretz, ran deliberately towards the vendor, pushing his hotdog stand and ingredients all over the pavement. Public works employees are only permitted to check for permits and direct people on how to register for one—their position doesn’t sanction violence. According to public records the assailant is still employed actively asking vendors for permits.
Now, District Sup. Ronen’s new 90-day ban on street vending is “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.”
All of these regulations on street vendors do nothing to address the main issue at Bart Station Plazas: opioid usage.
What can be done?
“Even if you can’t get behind the idea of saving someone’s life, and care only about getting addicts out of public view, listen to the evidence that demonstrates that safe injection sites achieve that aim. A study in Vancouver, Canada, showed that safe injection sites actually reduced the prevalence of public drug use in the surrounding area”
Ultimately, people are using more and more, driving more overdose deaths in San Francisco, thereby showcasing the urgency for a safe consumption site. We need a safe consumption site within the Mission District, in addition to one at Civic Center Plaza and in other spaces downtown. We used to have a safe consumption site, known as the Linkage Center, at Civic Center Plaza between January and December 2022 that served over 100,000 people and reversed over 300 overdoses. However, it was closed because less than 1% of the 100,000 people seen at the center were referred to mental health or drug treatment facilities.
When the Linkage Center closed, the City began to shift attention to having a nonprofit operate a safe consumption site. Unfortunately, with the shift, no organization has been able to afford setting up a consumption site given there is no funding from the city or state. When operational, the Linkage Center cost San Francisco $22 Million annually.
So we clearly need some financial resources to address the ongoing opioid crisis going on. In fact, Walgreens is expected to pay the city over $100 Million dollars due to a federal lawsuit last month, that says between 2006 and 2020, Walgreens distributed more than 100 million prescription opioids pills to pharmacies within the city, “while failing to take actions to identify suspicious prescriptions or prevent their illegal and harmful use.” It’s imperative for the city to figure this out. It saves lives. And it’s important for us all to have empathy for addicts because without it, people in power don’t work on solutions to address the real problems.
There is already a significant amount of money being pumped into having city workers cite and check street vendors for permits, as well as BART and SFPD that are not solving any systemic problems.