What’s the cost of selling hot dogs at the Palace of Fine Arts? Apparently, it’s to be terrified while a Park Ranger takes your fingerprint for a ticket.
A video posted online by right-wing San Francisco pundit Susan Dyer Reynolds on Feb. 8 showed a very young-looking hot dog vendor with a black face mask and a backwards cap receiving a citation from a Park Ranger with the city Recreation and Parks Department. A second post from Reynolds claimed that the vendor had been cited via fingerprint.
Recreation and Parks confirmed with Gazetteer SF that a citation was given for an unpermitted operation.
“In this case, the individual verbally provided their information and stated they were 21 years old,” Rec and Parks spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton told me via email. “When a subject cannot present physical ID, Rangers obtain a photo and fingerprint for the Court copy of the citation to verify identity.”
In other words, it’s just protocol — albeit protocol that has absolutely atrocious optics given the current political climate and has failed to stop illegal vending in the city.
Many of the hot dog vendors in the city are immigrants, and some undocumented people have said that they are selling food to pay back debts to the people who smuggled them into the country. At the same time, the Trump administration is currently doubling down on a brutal campaign of deportation, even for people with no criminal record and who came to the U.S. via legal pathways.
You can imagine how frightening it might be, then, to face an officer who wants to document your identity and put you into the criminal justice process. Any interaction with law enforcement, even a traffic citation, can potentially trigger an investigation by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
(A Gazetteer report found that law enforcement agencies in S.F. are empowered to quietly share data with ICE, despite its elected leaders affirming its status as a sanctuary city.)
While state laws decriminalized street vending, citations can still cost hundreds of dollars, and law enforcement can pursue misdemeanor charges in cases where a vendor does not comply or interferes with the city confiscating their equipment. In September 2024, a hot dog vendor was tackled and arrested in front of her five-year-old daughter after police claimed she tried to stop the confiscation of her cart and allegedly struck a city employee.
“My whole head, everything, bruised — how is it possible they did this to me?" the vendor, a single mother named Ana Luisa Casimir Julca, told ABC7.
As for the justification for all this? The city insists that there are huge issues with food safety, but it’s extremely rare for the city to get complaints about foodborne illness from street hot dogs, as Mission Local found in 2023. Then there are voices from the law-and-order commentariat, like Reynolds, who claim that the enforcement is about stopping child labor violations and human trafficking. Surely these entrenched crises can be solved by ticketing hot dog vendors at the park.
The city’s attempt to shut down unpermitted street food operations has turned into another sloppy cat-and-mouse game, and one that appears to confuse everyone involved. One food vendor at Dolores Park, for example, told me that he has sold food and drinks all across the city, including at the Palace of Fine Arts. Enforcement of illegal vending laws seem extremely subjective, he said, with some agencies giving tickets with no warnings and others apparently turning a blind eye.
Rec and Parks, for example, has only issued four warnings and three citations at the Palace of Fine Arts since 2022.
“It’s confusing, but if you know what you’re doing, you can get away with it,” he said in Spanish. “But it’s not an easy living.”
As for going legal, the process of permitting is often time-consuming, costly, and bewildering, requiring an applicant to work with multiple city departments. The vendor I spoke to said that he had called the city about a permit, but was ignored or was rejected without further discussion.
I couldn’t find any hot dog vendors at the Palace of Fine Arts — apparently, word has spread, but it won’t be long before they come back. Everyone is hustling to become the next success story, going legit with a brick-and-mortar business after grinding on the sidewalks of the Bay. At the same time, we’re ripping carts away from vulnerable people and taking dollars under the guise of justice.
Leave it to the Karens to keep screeching about how vendors are a blight to the city. Nobody is forcing them to eat street dogs. For the rest of us, I have only one tip: Look for a steaming hot griddle loaded with fresh ingredients that are being cooked to order.
