After 60 Weeks, the Hayes Street Closure Is No Longer Defensible

Update — August 2026: Documentation has continued since this article was published. As of August 2026, the record has reached 87 consecutive weeks of documented noncompliance, with the conditions described below continuing without substantive correction. For more than 60 consecutive weeks, residents and small businesses have documented permit violations on the 400 block of Hayes Street and submitted them to SFMTA. Over that same period, conditions have not improved. They have persisted, and impacts have escalated rather than been resolved. …

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Bilal in January 2025: Abdicating the Role of Representative

The earliest evidence of undue influence and eroded process. In January 2025, just two weeks into Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s term, a SFMTA/ISCOTT hearing was held to consider the Head West street closure permit. This for-profit marketplace had begun seeking a higher frequency (4x) of dates in Hayes Valley during the early pandemic — compounding the impacts of the already contentious Hayes Street weekend closure. HVS and local businesses had raised concerns for years, and Head West’s expanded footprint only intensified …

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What Recent Discovery Reveals About the Hayes Street “Public Life Study”

A transparency update from Hayes Valley Safe Over the past year, residents and small businesses in Hayes Valley have repeatedly asked basic, good-faith questions about the future of Hayes Street — including whether the current temporary closure was being evaluated neutrally, and whether public funds were being used to advance a predetermined outcome. Those questions went largely unanswered. In January 2026, in response to formal disclosure requests submitted in December 2025, Hayes Valley Safe received records that had not previously …

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What Civic Documentation Is and What It Is Not

Civic documentation is a basic part of how neighborhoods hold public decisions accountable. It means observing and recording how public space is being used, especially when that space is operating under a city permit. This includes photographing street conditions, signage, barricades, access, and compliance with permit terms. What civic documentation is: This kind of documentation is common. Journalists do it. Advocates do it. Neighbors do it. City agencies rely on it. What civic documentation is not: Public streets do not …

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Two More Retail Exits on Hayes Street and the Pattern We Can’t Ignore

Two more retail businesses have exited Hayes Street. Timbuk2, a long-tenured brand that spent nearly two decades in Hayes Valley, has moved on. Arden Home, a design-focused home goods store, has also said goodbye to the neighborhood. Different brands. Different customers. Same corridor. Individually, each closure can be explained away. Together, they add to a growing pattern that deserves closer scrutiny. Not “churn,” but a trend Hayes Street has seen a steady erosion of everyday retail over the past several …

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End of Year Message

2025 in Review: Receipts, Resilience, and a Reset for Hayes Valley For the past five years, we’ve marked time with either an end-of-year reflection or a start-of-year reset. This year feels different, not because the challenges disappeared, but because the full picture finally came into focus. 2025 was the year the pattern became undeniable. What many neighbors and small businesses experienced anecdotally, including exclusion, predetermined outcomes, selective enforcement, and closed-door coordination, became documented, traceable, and impossible to dismiss. Rather than …

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Linden for Me, Hayes for Thee

How San Francisco’s Living Alley Rules Undercut the Hayes Street Closure and Reveal a Double Standard on Linden Purpose of this briefThis brief examines how San Francisco’s Living Alley guidelines define temporary street and alley closures as small-scale, low-impact, and resident-protective, and how the long-running closure of the 400 block of Hayes Street departs from those principles in practice. It further examines how Living Alley standards are applied rigorously on Linden, a designated Living Alley, while materially different standards are …

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A private group is running a public street like it’s theirs

For nearly 2 years, the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA) has operated a parallel approval system governing access to a public street. This isn’t about events or programming. It’s about who controls access to a public street. A de facto gatekeeping and sublicensing system in which third parties are directed to apply for access to Hayes Street through HVNA’s own private form, under HVNA-defined conditions and HVNA-defined “approval,” rather than through the City’s permitting process. At the same time, the …

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An Open Letter: When City Hall is Complacent and Keeps Deferring to the Country Club

To our neighbors, public officials, and anyone paying attention— For over five years, we’ve shown up in good faith and we’re still showing up. We’ve submitted public comments, organized businesses, met with agencies, and tried to elevate the voices of residents who’ve been left out of the loop. We believed perhaps naively that if we did the work, we’d be heard. But in Hayes Valley, the pattern is clear: government doesn’t listen to the neighborhood. It listens to whoever claims …

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