Street Artists Program of San Francisco
[4] The program was the result of a hard-fought political battle by street artists who were sometimes harassed and arrested by police for selling their work on the city's sidewalks.
In response, street artists strategically organized by forming their own guild, hiring a lawyer, and drafting two ballot initiatives in order to create laws that enabled them to sell their work in public places.
In the 700 block of Beach Street adjacent to Victorian Park and near Fisherman's Wharf, between 15 and 25 artists would set up their displays and use lookouts to alert them to the arrival of the police.
[5] Under the direction of Warren Garrick (Nettles), a sculptor-painter[6] who would become the group's "chief spokesman",[7] the San Francisco Street Artists Guild was formed.
[8] The Guild hired a lawyer, Peter Keane, and began to develop a "political strategy" to manage interactions with the police and with local retail merchants.
[5][9] Keane and street-art activists noted that artists who were arrested for illegally selling their work on San Francisco's sidewalks were being charged with peddling without a license – although the city's laws contained a provision to issue peddlers' permits.
In April the street artists staged a couple of protests at city hall and at Mayor Joseph Alioto's office while carrying a coffin, which symbolized the death of their incomes as a result of frequent police arrests.
[11] The protests garnered news coverage and Alioto promised to speak to the police chief about a solution for the permits, and afterward schedule talks with the artists' organizers.
[15] At the end of the afternoon, when the permit expired, they moved their wares from the park to the nearby sidewalks of Beach Street, the police made arrests, and the moratorium was officially over.
[15] When the arrested artists were arraigned before Judge Axelrod, he commented that he "thought that the code section was unconstitutional" because the law sets no clear standards for licensing and makes no provision for fair hearings on permit applications.
[19][20] In September, as a result of the ACLU lawsuit, a Superior Court judge issued a restraining order that prohibited the police from arresting artists who sold their work on the sidewalks.
[22] Word quickly spread of the new legal privilege and hundreds of new street artists, as well as opportunists, came to the sidewalks of crowded Union Square to sell their wares during the busy Christmas season.
[10][23][24] The flood of new street artists and other sellers who could now operate with no regulations or enforcement created an environment of chaos, and fights occasionally broke out over the selection of selling spaces.
[5] An Ad Hoc Committee Against Street Vendors, formed by San Francisco businessman Cyril Magnin, branded the sidewalk selling scene as a public safety hazard.
[5] The disorder and violence that prevailed in December foreshadowed a continuing and grave liability for this and any other street artists program: Without regulation and an enforcement strategy, any street artists program could easily be infiltrated by opportunists who would make money their sole priority, drastically lower the quality of products, sell commercially manufactured items, and occasionally resort to intimidation or violence during selling-space selection.
[19] With less than ten days before the end of the Christmas retail season, Mayor Alioto instructed police to stop the arrests and only issue warnings.
[25] Alioto and the Supervisors felt that allowing the sale of commercially manufactured items would put the street artists in unfair competition with storeowners, who must also include their rental costs and employee salaries within their prices.
Under Kopp's plan, the program would be run by a chief administrator, and the Board of Supervisors would determine who should receive a license and where the artists would be allowed to sell.
The artists' organizers continued to schedule meetings before the Board of Supervisors in an attempt to include the 700 block of Beach Street and downtown selling locations as well.
In 1972 and 1973 the Street Artists Guild made nine appeals to the Board of Supervisors for viable selling spaces before deciding to submit a ballot initiative directly to the voters.
To date, the ordinance defined by Proposition L is still the current law which sets forth the procedures and privileges of the Street Artists Program of San Francisco.
[57] Licenses are not granted for street artists who produce or sell "food items, incense, perfumes, body oils, soaps, or other cosmetic products".
[64] The designated selling areas include: Fisherman's Wharf, the downtown financial district, the Cliff House, and Justin Herman Plaza.
[64] Unlike other public arts programs, such as Seattle's Pike Place Market, San Francisco does not assign selling spaces by seniority.
