Illegal Street Vendors Still Crowding Mission District Sidewalks Despite New Law

A new law took effect last fall authorizing police to cite people selling suspected stolen merchandise without permits or proof of purchase. Despite the law, SFPD has not issued any citations or fines in the Mission this year, and residents report illegal vending is spreading to side streets. Residents and merchants say illegal vending blocks sidewalks, contributes to retail theft, and fuels violence and disorder. Citywide, only 16 warnings were issued from August 2025 through April. Residents near BART plazas and the Tenderloin say clearing vendors pushes activity elsewhere, and arrests alone do not provide long-term relief. In parts of the Mission, residents report increasing drug dealing and open drug use around residential blocks and Alioto Mini Park, alongside unsafe sidewalks and dirtiness. More than two dozen residents call for surveillance cameras, increased police presence, and coordinated responses to encampments and open-air drug activity.

"Nearly five months after a new law passed authorizing police to cite people caught selling suspected stolen merchandise without permits or proof of purchase, city officials have yet to issue a single citation or fine, as the Chronicle reports. Despite a new law that went into effect last fall, the SFPD has yet to issue any citations to illegal street vendors in the Mission this year, and residents say illegal activity is spreading to side streets. Only 16 warnings were issued from August 2025 through April, citywide."

"Residents and merchants in the Mission, Mid-Market, and Chinatown say illegal vending markets continue to block sidewalks, fuel retail theft, and contribute to ongoing violence and disorder as they wait for stronger enforcement from the city. According to KTVU, residents say that when the city clears illegal vendors near the 16th and 24th Street BART plazas and in the Tenderloin, they spread the activity further onto side streets and arrests alone are not solving the problem long term."

"Neighbors near 20th and Capp streets say drug dealing and drug use have increasingly spread into residential blocks and around Alioto Mini Park, which Sergeant Brandon Rock of the Mission Corridor Task Force, acknowledged, while adding that enforcement for other offenses has increased. "The neighborhood is far safer than it's been in a lot of time in history," Rock tells KTVU. "So the violence is not the issue that we once had, but the open drug-use and the dirtiness and the unsafe feeling sidewalks, I totally understand.""

"More than two dozen residents recently signed a letter calling for surveillance cameras, increased police presence, and a coordinated response to encampments and open-air drug activity. "In the last month, we're part of the statistic, we've had our house broken into, not the first time, my wife was assaulted on the street, not the first time, and so it's really scary, it's to the point where she won't leave the house,""

Read at sfist.com