The Informant

Flickr photo by Franco Folini. www.flickr.com/photos/livenature/

One month ago, San Francisco voters approved Proposition L, making it illegal to sit or lie down on sidewalks throughout the city. To say the ballot measure was controversial is an understatement. Prop L divided businesses throughout the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, prompted numerous sit-ins and a guerilla art campaign.

Despite the vocal outcry and accusations that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposal smacked of NIMBY-ism and would violate basic civil rights, more than 54 percent of voters cast their ballots for Sit/Lie. Neighborhoods such as Pacific Heights (where much of Prop L’s funding came from) and Cole Valley were in favor of the measure, while poorer areas such as the Haight and the Tenderloin, where sit/lie is expected to have more of an impact, rejected Prop L.

Although there is widespread perception that Sit/Lie will come into effect on December 17, the San Francisco Police Department first needs to draw up a general order outlining just how patrol officers will enforce the measure, and then conduct a department-wide training. Chief George Gascón and his command staff have been working with the City Attorney and the Mayor’s office to draw up the policy.

Lieutenant Troy Dangerfield of SFPD’s Media Relations Unit said that officers have not been enforcing Sit/Lie to date, and the department does not have a firm date for when it will go into effect. Sit/Lie critics have a different perspective. Bob Offer-Westort, the civil rights director of the Coalition on Homelessness, says his organization has received complaints about SFPD officers in the Haight, Castro, Mission, and Tenderloin neighborhoods increasing their scrutiny of transients, instructing people sitting on the sidewalk to move or risk being cited.

Offer-Westort does not believe Sit/Lie enforcement will differ from the nuisance enforcement SFPD already conducts, opining that “most policing work in San Francisco is low-level harassment” driven by business owners and concerned residents.

This afternoon, I spent some time with a pair of travelers who were playing music for change on Haight Street, outside Martin Mack’s pub. Chris, a 25-year-old Brooklyn native who preferred not to give his last name, played folk songs while Eric Rector, a Sacramento native, kept time with a pair of drums and  cymbals. Chris, who plays on Haight street when he is in San Francisco, had heard of the Sit/Lie policy. “With the police, it depends on the day of the week,” he said. “Some days it’s good, some days it’s bad. But that’s all gonna change in January.”

“They have something like Sit/Lie in Seattle – they had to hire a whole private security force to enforce it” said Eric, who sat on a crate behind his bass drum. “Out here, they’d stress a lot worse.”

During the half-hour I stood with Chris and Eric, they played about five songs to a shifting crowd, some of whom stopped to take pictures with them. Three times, SFPD patrol cars drove by, including one undercover officer in a white Ford Crown Victoria whose shades, long hair and beard gave him the air of a Hell’s Angel.

As I started to walk away, an SFPD patrol car pulled up. A male patrol officer with “Lundin” on his nametag and his female partner, whose jacket covered her nameplate, instructed Chris and Eric to leave. As a crowd gathered, Lundin told the pair they had received a noise complaint and said they could be cited for disturbing the peace. After running both Eric and Chris’ IDs, the officers moved on – but not before a bartender of Martin Mack’s took the female officer aside and asked her not to cite Chris and Eric.

What could change with this scenario is Eric could be found in violation of Sit/Lie (section 168 of the municipal police code) for sitting on his milk crate. According to the text of Proposition L (posted below), anyone found sitting or lying on the sidewalk during “business hours” may be written up for an infraction on their first offense, with a penalty ranging from $50 to $100 or community service. Second-time offenders who who violate Sit/Lie twice within 24 hours face a misdemeanor charge and anywhere from $300 to $500 in fines – or a ten-day stint in the county jail. Individuals found in violation of Sit/Lie within 120 days of a misdemeanor conviction under Civil Sidewalks face $400 to $500 in fines and/or a 30 -day jail sentence.

In the Mission District, Sit/Lie is raising another host of concerns about the potential impact on day laborers and the neighborhood’s sizable population of undocumented immigrants. Renee Saucedo, a civil rights attorney at La Raza Centro Legal, said the poor, the homeless and people of color in the Mission have long been a target for police harassment.

Saucedo claims day businesses and residents frequently call police to complain about day laborers soliciting work along César Chavez Street in San Francisco. “Sometimes, these day laborers sit on the sidewalk to rest,” Saucedo said. “They potentially could be cited for that under Sit/Lie – and for immigrant communities, Sit/Lie is loaded because California is implementing Secure Communities.” Secure Communities (or S-Com, for short), is a federal initiative where fingerprints of all individuals arrested for a crime in participating counties are made available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “When undocumented folks get arrested for violating Sit/Lie, they will be run through S-Com and could be turned over to immigration, Saucedo said.”

At an event for day laborers hosted by La Raza Centro Legal, Saucedo said, a representative from Mayor Newsom’s office promised that day laborers would not be targeted under Sit/Lie.