The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday an ordinance that will allow the city’s vendors to sell food cooked in their homes, provided they comply with state food safety regulations.

The ordinance is in line with a 2019 state law that allows for Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations, or MEHKO. Under this program, street food vendors can potentially get permits to cook the food they sell in their own homes, but individual counties have full discretion in authorizing and implementing their own MEHKO programs.

Other counties, including Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara, have instituted their own MEHKO programs, and the Marin County Board of Supervisors also adopted a three-year pilot program in September.

But San Francisco had not rolled out their own MEHKO programs until now.

In February, when the city’s Department of Public Health proposed stricter permitting regulations and new compliance requirements for vending carts, the vendors said that the changes would add to their financial burden.

They said that it is unfair for the city to enact those changes without also rolling out the MEHKO program, which would offer a way to alleviate some of the additional costs.

Ordinance in the works since September

In September, Supervisor Jackie Fielder introduced the ordinance, which cleared the Budget and Finance Committee, before being approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

According to the ordinance, vendors can apply for a MEHKO permit, after which city staff will conduct a health and food safety inspection of the site and subsequently grant the permit if compliance requirements are met.

MEHKO permit holders will pay $828 in annual license fees to the city.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisor Myrna Melgar thanked Fielder for introducing the legislation, which she said will benefit an often-overlooked section of the city’s economy.

“It is mostly immigrant women, many of them single moms, many of them taking care of their kids, trying to make do and survive,” said Melgar, referring to the city’s street food vendors. “Thank you for recognizing the dreams and aspirations of this community.”