June 6, 2025
Dear Rules Committee Members,
We submitted our concerns last week regarding the sudden and unvetted expansion of the Entertainment Zone legislation to include Hayes Valley. Our concerns went unacknowledged — and since then, the situation has only escalated. The June 9 agenda now shows the item continuing, but with a CEQA designation that appears designed to sidestep both environmental and neighborhood impact review. Still, no draft management plan has been released, no community input has been sought, and no explanation has been provided for why Hayes Valley was added retroactively, without process. Notably, Hayes Valley was not agendized at the June 2 hearing, and no supporting materials were made available to the public in advance — a clear deviation from standard legislative practice.
The scale and scope of the proposed zone are unprecedented – spanning more than 18 blocks and embedding weekend closures, open-container allowances, and amplified events into the heart of a dense neighborhood. It would fundamentally alter the makeup and function of Hayes Valley, prioritizing entertainment uses over the daily needs of small businesses, families, and long-time residents. We are not simply raising procedural concerns…we are raising community concerns. There has been no outreach, no notification, and no acknowledgment of the diverse and growing opposition among local stakeholders. This is not a case of bureaucratic misstep—it’s a failure of representation. Hayes Valley is a dense residential district bordered by Civic Center, Market Street, and the Mission – all areas struggling with overlapping public safety and drug-related crises. To designate a 20-block Entertainment Zone here without a safety plan or oversight structure is reckless. We are already experiencing spillover from encampments to emergency response strain and in our view this policy will only intensify those risks.
We have filed formal Sunshine and Ethics complaints, and are awaiting responses to pending inquiries from Supervisor Mahmood’s office, SFMTA, OEWD, the Entertainment Commission, and Planning. These materials including the required management plan and departmental documentation are essential for any informed public process, and responses are likely still weeks away. Proceeding without them would be premature and irresponsible. Supervisor Mahmood’s office has already acknowledged the need for “additional time” to research and compile responsive records related to this legislation. His office confirmed that documents would take up to 10 calendar days (a timeline that alone proves this measure is not ready for advancement). How can the Committee move forward when the legislative sponsor himself admits records are still being located?
We also urge the Committee to reflect on who is driving this policy. It was not initiated through broad community consensus, but by one permit holder and a narrow circle of insiders. Hayes Valley is home to nearly 10,000 residents with the majority being renters. It’s a compact, high-density neighborhood where most households are under two people, and many include seniors, families, and long-term tenants. Yet their input and concerns have been entirely disregarded. The notion that a change of this scale is being shaped by a handful of unelected voices, without engagement from the residents and businesses most affected, is both undemocratic and unsustainable.
We respectfully call on the Committee to:
- Deny advancement of the ordinance at this time;
- Require a standalone hearing specific to the Hayes Valley amendment;
- Remove Hayes Valley from consideration until due process is followed and local voices are meaningfully included.We need the brakes on this. This legislation doesn’t just codify a contested closure — it opens the door to a permanent transformation of our neighborhood without consent, without planning, and without accountability.
Have a good weekend, and please think about this.
Sincerely,
HVSafe