Chinatown Night Market approved to expand to 5 blocks on Grant Avenue despite opposition from neighbors and no community outreach

(SAN FRANCISCO) BeChinatown, main organizer of the popular Chinatown Night Market, was approved by the City to expand the venue of the upcoming night market events from three blocks to five blocks on Grant Avenue despite opposition from merchants and residents.

The Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT) unanimously voted on April 25 to approve the new permit application for the expansion of Chinatown Night Market street closure to five blocks of Grant Avenue, from California Street to Pacific Avenue, on all second Fridays each month starting May to November 2024 from 3pm to 10pm.

The ISCOTT Committee is chaired and administered by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) with other voting members from the City’s Public Works, Police, Fire, Public Health, Planning Departments as well as Entertainment Commission.

Nick Chapman, Manager for Street Closures in SFMTA, spoke in the hearing that two emails were received in opposition including lack of community outreach with English-only notice posted on light poles.

Lily Lo, President and Co-founder of BeChinatown, said in the virtual hearing that she wanted to have two additional blocks on Grant Avenue in order to let more vendors and nonprofit groups participate in the upcoming night markets. She did not address the issues related to community outreach and language access.

Jonathan Sit, co-founder of Chinatown Volunteer Coalition which is one of the participating partners of Chinatown Night Market, called in during the meeting in support of the application. Sit said the goal of Chinatown Night Market aimed to support the small businesses in Chinatown and encourage them to open later in the evenings. "I hope it will bring more people to Chinatown," Sit said.

Neville Zhang, one of the Chinatown merchants, called in during the ISCOTT hearing in opposition. But Zhang was unable to express his views in the hearing due to technical issues that he was not familiar with the online meeting operation.

Zhang spoke with Wind Newspaper after the hearing that his experience of technical difficulties to prevent him speaking to the committee online via his desktop computer indicated the challenges of many small businesses in Chinatown faced in the world of technology. As a result, the voices of many small businesses in Chinatown had been ignored and overlooked.

His storefront business selling gift merchandise on Grant Avenue is not related to food and drinks. His business did not benefit from the past Chinatown Night Market events. On the contrary, he was impacted and suffered because of street closure starting at 3pm on Friday afternoon which is always one of the best hours for him to have more customers. Zhang also said visitors would block and eat in front of his storefront during the crowded Chinatown Night Market events.

"I would suggest the venue of Chinatown Night Market events be relocated to Portsmouth Square like 20 years ago to minimize the impacts to other small businesses," Zhang said.

David Au, owner of Wai Hing Chinese Crafts Imports which has been in business on Grant Avenue in Chinatown for 50 years, was also against the expansion of Chinatown Night Market venue on Grant Avenue to Pacific Avenue.

Au was one of the appellants against the yearlong street closure on Grant Avenue for LionDanceMe performances on all weekends from 10am to 7pm.

"The city and the organizers of both LionDanceMe performances and Chinatown Night Market events have not respected equal rights and equal opportunities of other businesses and residents in Chinatown. I am hoping that people could understand more the definition of 'equal rights and equal opportunities'," Au said. "I was the first one to find out the SFMTA signs newly installed along Grant Avenue about the street closures for lion dance performances (on weekends) and Chinatown Night Market events (on second Friday each month). No one told us about all these street closures prior."

"I am willing to speak out not for myself, but the elderly and underserved residents who live in Chinatown's small apartments around Grant Avenue," Au added. "Many of them do not read English. They don't know how and where to speak for their own rights."

Au spoke to Wind Newspaper with frustration after learning the ISCOTT's decision to grant the expansion for Chinatown Night Market events.

Au was not informed by anyone about the expansion permit application. He only saw the English-only notices posted on the light poles several days prior to the hearing. Au had documented the loud sound of musical performances non-stop for several hours during the monthly Chinatown Night Market events in March and April.

Michael Lau, owner of the Chinatown Parking Garage on Pacific Avenue, opposed the 2-block expansion of night market on Grant Avenue to Pacific Avenue. Lau agreed that he had benefited from the night market events in March and April with more customers.

But Lau disagreed with the plan to add two more blocks for street closure including the block on Grant Avenue between Jackson Street and Pacific Avenue.

Lau said his privately-operated garage is located right at the corner of Grant and Pacific Avenues. He did not receive any information from organizers prior to the ISCOTT hearing. He learned about the permit application only one day before the deadline for submitting public comments.

Lau found an English-only notice with the SFMTA logo posted on a light pole. "The street closure on Grant Avenue between Jackson Street to Pacific Avenue will provide much more traffic jam to the entire Chinatown on second Friday of each month," Lau said.

"Everyone knows that the traffic flow on Pacific Avenue between Grant and Stockton Streets has been extremely slow and jammed from mornings until 6pm everyday in recent years." Lau further said. "The street closure of 1000 block Grant Avenue (between Jackson and Pacific) on Friday afternoon during commute hours will affect merchants, residents, visitors and commuters."

Lau's customers would not be able to turn into Pacific Avenue from Grant Avenue and need to drive for a long route to find other ways into his garage on Pacific Avenue.

Joysic Yu is a mother with her young children living in an apartment around that corner. "How would the street closure be with no impact to us?” Yu said there should not have any regular street closure around that corner of Grant and Pacific Avenues which has been one of the busiest intersections in Chinatown, in particular with more residential apartments in the area like the Ping Yuen public housings.

Pius Lee was the founder of the first San Francisco Chinatown Night Market in 1999 at Portsmouth Square. It was popular and packed with visitors for 10 years.

"I first planned to have the night market on Grant Avenue as well. Because of the opposition from the merchants, I decided to move to Portsmouth Square and it went very well for 10 years," said Lee, founder of Chinatown Neighborhood Association.

The new round of Chinatown Night Market events began in late September 2023 to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival and the newly installation of red lanterns along 400 and 500 blocks Grant Avenue. It started with a small scale night market with one block street closure for one time. The APEC night market in November 2023 was expanded to two blocks with thousands of visitors.

The responses of Chinatown night market events were tremendous and beyond expectations. The non-profit Civic Joy Fund project of Civic Space Foundation started with a $5,000 donation to BeChinatown to support the night market events and continued with a $100,000 donation exclusively for nine Chinatown Night Market events, second Friday night from May to November, throughout 2024 in aim to the economic recovery for Chinatown small businesses.

However there were almost around the same 30 vendors among the 160 food and drink storefronts in Chinatown to be repeatedly selected to participate in each of the night market outdoor events.

Almost 130 food and drink businesses in Chinatown were excluded from the night market events except some of them were restaurants and boba tea shops located near the event venue, from 500 to 900 blocks of Grant Avenue, to have more customers walking in during the night market hours. Many of Chinatown restaurants and businesses are still struggling for survival in the midst of the economic downturn.

OEWD: 164 food and drink shops among 939 storefronts in San Francisco Chinatown

According to the latest data from the San Francisco Office of Economic & Workforce Development (OEWD), as of December 31,2023, a total of 939 commercial storefronts are operated in Chinatown, in which 148 are eating places including restaurants, cafes, Dim Sum places, and 16 are drinking/social places. The food and drinks shops represent approximately 17.5% of Chinatown businesses.

"There is no open and fair application process in place for the monthly Chinatown Night Market events. We would like to participate. We are not able to find more information about where to apply and when the deadline is," said one restaurant owner who declined to be named in the article and the restaurant is not close to Grant Avenue.

Several other owners of food and drink shops in Chinatown who spoke to Wind Newspaper agreed. "When the events are held in public land and funded by non-profit organizations, every business here in Chinatown who is qualified should be allowed to participate," another owner in Chinatown said.

"We are eager to participate, not only for the profits, but also the opportunities for us to promote the uniqueness and specialty of our brand names to many more customers in the night events," another owner added.

If numbers of applicants would exceed the limit of vendors at each night market, business owners suggested taking turns for everyone to have equal opportunities to participate and share the profits.

Wind Newspaper sent inquiries both to Lily Lo, President of BeChinatown and main organizer of Chinatown Night Market, and Manny Yekutiel, co-founder of Civic Joy Fund and former member of the SFMTA board of Trustees, who provided a $100,000 donation for nine Chinatown night market events in 2024. Both of them did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

"We received two emails objecting to the expanded Night Market permit during the period for public input on that application. More public input may be made at today’s hearing. ISCOTT – the interdepartmental committee – will take all public input into consideration when reviewing the application," Erica Kato, spokeswoman of SFMTA, responded on April 25.