"Often it descends into chaos pretty quickly, and we just do not have the amount of staff that we need or the money to staff the streets 24 hours a day," said District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who spearheaded the ban and worked with the mayor's office to enact it on Nov. 27 last year.
"We still have major enforcement problems on the streets every single time there are no police and [Public Works] workers physically there," said Ronen. Conditions at the BART plazas and Mission Street have improved markedly, she said - but the balance is fickle.
The city implemented a three-phased pilot program that allowed some vendors to return to Mission Street over the summer. But the pilot has not worked as intended for all.
Permitted vendors opposed the ban from the day it was announced, arguing that it would damage their incomes. Shortly after, more than 100 protested the move and formed the Mission Street Vendors Association.
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