The Street Artists Program of San Francisco is a municipal arts program in which independent street artists and craftspeople sell their art and craft items in designated public spaces in the city of San Francisco, California. The artists are licensed by the San Francisco Arts Commission and are only allowed to sell work that has been "predominantly created or significantly altered in form" by the street artist. The Arts Commission currently licenses approximately 400 street artists, whose licensing fees cover all program costs.Street Artists Bluebook (2008), pp. 9, 11. The program generates an estimated $4 million annually for the city's economy."World Class Art for A World Class City", San Francisco Arts Commission brochure, 2011, p. 6.
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. Some street artists were willing to be arrested time and again in order to draw media attention to their cause and to push for a change in existing laws.
History During the 1960s, California was the site of many outdoor art fairs, which nurtured a culture of independent artists and craftspersons. At this time there was an effort to sell crafts on the sidewalks of the liberal Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Artists and street performers who illegally set up in public areas were frequently harassed and arrested by the police. 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.
1971 Following the February 6, 1971 arrest of several street artists, including William Clark, in the 700 block of Beach Street, a first attempt was made to organize the street artists. Under the direction of Warren Garrick (Nettles), a sculptor-painter who would become the group's "chief spokesman","A Raucous Hearing on Artists' Bid", San Francisco Chronicle (11 August 1972), p. 1, 18. the San Francisco Street Artists Guild was formed."Photographs of San Francisco Street Artist Guild's Stonestown Shopping Center Show", "Combined Sunday edition of the SF Chronicle and the SF Examiner" (3 October 1971) p. ?. 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."Street Artists vs. Law – It's Not a Pretty Picture", San Francisco Chronicle (2 April 1971), p. 3.
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. However, the police department, which oversaw the granting of peddlers’ permits, was unwilling to issue any new permits, and it was revealed that only two sellers had been granted peddlers’ permits since 1969."Street Artists Attorney Testifies", San Francisco Chronicle (3 December 1971), p. 9 Keane and the activists realized that the city had placed itself in a difficult position by arbitrarily denying access to a provision within the city charter, and prepared to legally exploit that vulnerability.
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."City Hall Protest By Street Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (15 April 1971), p. 2. 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."Alioto, Friend of the Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (16 April 1971), p. 26. During those later dialogues with Mayor Alioto, Garrick suggested that the city should consider a separate licensing system for artists who sell their own creations, and provide designated selling areas for those licensed artists."Street Artists Meet the Mayor", San Francisco Chronicle (24 April 1971), p. 33. Alioto was not resistant to the proposal, the talks went well, and Garrick left the meetings feeling that there would be a moratorium on the arrests.
However, later in May when the talks began to stall, Garrick realized that no real progress was being made with the mayor and the police chief."Street Artists To Dramatize Police Beefs", San Francisco Chronicle (8 May 1971), p. 28. The artists then acquired a temporary state park permit allowing them to sell in Victorian Park."S.F. Street Artists Are Arrested", San Francisco Chronicle (17 May 1971), p. 2. 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. 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."Judge's Boost for S.F. Street Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (18 May 1971), p. 3."More Peddler Busts", San Francisco Chronicle (20 September 1971), p. 2. Recognizing the city's legal jeopardy, the Guild's organizers recruited the ACLU and lawyer Robert Kantor to file suit against the city over the arrests, because the city had given "absolute and unguided discretion to the license granting authority which consistently and systematically denies permits to artists and musicians"."ACLU Move For Street Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (29 June 1971), p. 5. The Guild further contended that such works – when sold on public sidewalks – are expressions of art protected under the First Amendment."License Suit Lost By Street Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (15 December 1971), p. 7"New Artists' Court Plea", San Francisco Chronicle (12 April 1974), p. 4.
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."Order Halts Arrests of Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (25 September 1971), p. 2. However, the police did not halt the ongoing arrests, and in October, Judge Ira Brown issued an injunction and scolded the police for ignoring the restraining order."S.F. Artists Win Case – Again", San Francisco Chronicle (15 October 1971), p. 1, 24. That injunction meant that any police officer who arrested a street artist could be fined or jailed by Judge Brown. 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."Fair Weather Peddlers", San Francisco Chronicle (25 October 1971), p. 4."Peddlers' Ordinance Hearing Ends", San Francisco Chronicle (7 December 1971), p. 4. 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. An Ad Hoc Committee Against Street Vendors, formed by San Francisco businessman Cyril Magnin, branded the sidewalk selling scene as a public safety hazard. 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."Alioto Offers Space For Street Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (1 January 1972), p. 3.
On December 15 another Superior Court judge overruled the injunction, declaring that the peddlers' ordinance was not unconstitutional, and that the police could continue with the arrests. 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."Street Artist Crackdown Is Canceled", San Francisco Chronicle (23 December 1971), p. 1, 18.
The arrests and legal efforts of 1971 attracted enough media attention that a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission, Ray Taliaferro, expressed his desire that the Arts Commission should support legislation to license and regulate street artists and street musicians."Peddlers Face Arrest", San Francisco Chronicle (22 December 1971), p. 3. In December, Taliaferro declared to the media, "I hate to see the street artists and musicians run out of the city. This is a significant artistic revolution we see going on. The city should do what it can to encourage these people".
1972 In January 1972 Alioto proposed that artists should be licensed and regulated by some city agency, and he granted the three requested areas where street artists could sell: inside Union Square on weekends, on the 700 block of Beach Street on Sundays, and at Embarcadero Plaza full-time. City Supervisor Quentin Kopp, responding to pressure from downtown merchants, questioned the mayor's authority to initiate such a program."Kopp Queries Decision on Street Artists", San Francisco Chronicle (11 January 1972), p. 3. Two other Supervisors, Terry Francois and Robert Mendelson, introduced a resolution that would allow artists to acquire permits, allow the Supervisors to select selling locations, and have the artists' peers judge whether or not their products were of their own creation."New Street Artists Law Introduced", San Francisco Chronicle (25 January 1972), p. 3. It was essential to Alioto and the Supervisors that artists would only be "selling their own work, not commercial products purchased from wholesalers". 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.
Kopp followed by submitting his own resolution to the Board of Supervisors. 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. Kopp also suggested that the price of a license should be minimal, being between $48 and $100 a year."Kopp Plan For Vendor Licenses", San Francisco Chronicle (1 February 1972), p. 2.