SAN FRANCISCO STREET VENDORS at a Board of Supervisors committee meeting Wednesday voiced their concerns about a proposed ordinance that they said would add significantly to their financial burden.
The city’s Department of Public Health introduced the ordinance to bring local codes into alignment with Senate Bill 972, a state law that decriminalized street food vending in 2023.
But instead of offering a pathway to operate their businesses legitimately, the city’s street food vendors feel that the new proposed regulations will cripple them by adding tens of thousands of dollars to their cost of doing business overnight.
“Regulation without accompanying support is not acceptable,” said Leila Ovando, who works with Nuestra Causa, a Mission District-based nonprofit that advocates for street vendors. “We’re not creating a pathway, we’re creating a cliff.”
Central to the ordinance is the creation of a new category called Compact Mobile Food Operations for vendors operating from non-motorized pushcarts, stands or wagons. If the ordinance is passed, vendors will need permits from the city and comply with other requirements to classify themselves as CMFOs and operate their businesses.
A previous version of the ordinance set out permit fees ranging from $188 to $502, and other requirements include procuring a pushcart and using commercial kitchens to do the cooking.
In Wednesday’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance subcommittee, an amended version of the ordinance was presented that would waive permit fees. But street food vendors said that the costs of switching to a cart and renting a commercial kitchen are the highest costs.
Rosie Villanueva, a vendor in the Mission District, said that the cost of the cart alone would be between $8,000-$16,000.
“A majority of us don’t have that kind of money,” she said.
In 2019, the state Legislature allowed cities and counties to authorize a new retail food category called Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations. Under this program, street food vendors could potentially get permits to cook the food they sell in their own homes.
But the program has not yet been rolled out in San Francisco, leaving commercial kitchens as the only option available to street vendors if the ordinance is passed. They said that it is unfair for the city to enact the CMFO ordinance without also rolling out the MEHKO program, which would offer a way to alleviate some of the costs.
“If the city wants the vendors to have a livelihood, consider implementing MEHKO, something that provides a safe space for us,” said Villanueva.
District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder — who represents the Mission District — and Budget and Finance subcommittee chair Supervisor Connie Chan questioned the Department of Public Health on why a MEHKO plan has not been put into place in the city yet.
Jennifer Callewaert from the Department of Public Health said, “It’s a very large program, so we would have to have a conversation about staffing needs and a full budget analysis.”
She said that her department is open to having more conversations with the mayor’s office and other stakeholders about working out a plan to roll out the MEHKO policy.
In the meantime, Chan suggested that the department could investigate providing temporary exemptions to vendors who would have qualified to cook at home through MEHKO but cannot do so because of the city’s failure to offer the program.
The matter will be discussed again on Feb. 11 at the next Budget and Finance subcommittee meeting.