San Francisco mayor wants voters to decide on plan to make sitting, lying on sidewalks illegal

SF mayor wants sidewalk-sitting ban on ballot

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants voters to decide on a proposal to make sitting or lying on city sidewalks illegal.

Newsom’s spokesman, Tony Winnicker, said Wednesday the mayor plans to keep a promise that he would put the “sit/lie” ordinance on the November ballot if city supervisors rejected it.

Supervisors voted 8-3 against the measure Tuesday.

Winnicker says a sit/lie ban would give police better tools to protect pedestrians from loiterers who intimidate or impede them.

Some residents and merchants have sought the measure to prevent threatening behavior by transients like those who sit on the sidewalk in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

Critics say the proposal is overly broad and might target harmless homeless people and day laborers.