As state bills go, SB 925 was extremely local: a small carveout, for San Francisco and San Francisco only, that once again gave the city’s police department the ability to enforce laws against selling stuff on the sidewalk without a permit.
Specifically, the law would have allowed officers to cite vendors for possessing the kind of stuff that is usually stolen, often from a business nearby, like laundry detergent, bottles of liquor and T-bone steaks — an attempt to control the chaotic street vending conditions that had overtaken Mission Street since the pandemic.
“Who knows if it would have even worked,” said then-District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen of SB 925, which died in committee in August 2024, dashing her hopes of reforming the street vending situation in the Mission District before she was termed out of office. “But at least it was something.”…