Who We Are

Sidewalks Are for People is a group of neighborhood organizations, labor organizations, queer people's organizations, poor people's organizations, and individuals from all walks of life who believe:

  1. that it is always wrong to write laws that criminalize people just for being poor;
  2. that it's an especially bad idea when those laws make criminals out of -all- of us; and
  3. that the focus on sit/lie is making it harder for San Franciscans to find out about the real solutions that our communities are putting forward.

We stand against bad ideas like the sit/lie law being used to scapegoat some of us and distract the rest our communities from the very real public safety problems we have in San Francisco. We stand against the misinformation that cynical politicians and consultants have spread about our neighborhoods and our laws. We stand against sit/lie, and we ask you to stand with us.

We're tired of the bad politics that pit people against one another in San Francisco; if you're a supporter of sit/lie, drop us a line, and we're glad to have a one-on-one conversation. If you don't know where you stand, but have questions, we're happy to answer them. But if it comes down to butting heads, we're also happy to speak or debate at any public event.


Padre Louis Vitale from this month’s press conference

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Video courtesy Bill Carpenter.

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Celina Sutton (and Baby Walt) from this month’s press conference

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Video courtesy Bill Carpenter.

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Alan Schlosser from last week’s press conference

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David Campos from Last Week’s Press Conference

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David Campos delivered a powerful speech at last week’s press conference, and Bill Carpenter was kind enough to record and edit it for us. Look for further footage from the event in the next few days!:

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The Bay Citizen: Pacific Heights Moguls Fund Sit/Lie

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Zoe Corneli of The Bay Citizen posted, yesterday evening, a really interesting story about the primary funders of the campaign for Prop L (sit/lie): None of the major funders live in the Haight. Some are from out of town. Most are from the finance sector or real estate.

We, meanwhile, have a tenth of the money they’ve got. We’re running a great campaign based on volunteer effort and creativity, but you can bet that the proponents of Prop L are going to start spending that money on advertising big-time when the election gets nearer.

You can be our Pac Heights mogul! Check out your donation options here.

P.S. To all the good citizens of Pacific Heights who won’t be supporting Prop L this November: We didn’t choose or suggest The Bay Citizen‘s headline. While a couple of your neighbors apparently disagree, we don’t think that sit/lie would be good for any neighborhood.

El Tecolote: Sit-Lie opponents fear proposed ordinance targets working poor

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Read this great article by Greg Zeman in El Tecolote on the proposed sit/lie law. Zeman points out how the combination of sit/lie with S-Comm (a Federal database recently implemented in San Francisco that is likely to increase the deportation of undocumented immigrants) may result in deportations for day laborers sitting down while looking for a job:

“I maybe can stand without sitting for four or five hours if I have to, but how can I stand all day?” asked Carlos, one of the men on Cesar Chavez whose name was changed for fear of reprisal. “What if I want to sit down to eat?”

AP covers Sit/Lie (and we get the last word)

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Here’s a good video news piece from Associated Press reporter, Haven Daley.  Interestingly, he tried for at least three days to get an interview with Mayor Newsom for the story, but his requests went unanswered.

Debut of SF Public Press print edition features brilliant sit/lie comic strip

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Journalist Shawn Gaynor and artist/musician/novelist Andrew Goldfarb have collaborated to create an informative, well-researched, visually brilliant, and compelling full-page comic strip about sit/lie for the debut print edition of the SF Public PressFind out where you can get your copy of this exciting experiment in “ad-free news in the public interest.”  (Note: the SF Public press has taken no official stance on the sit/lie issue.)

You can checkout the full comic at the SF Public Press website, but in order to see it in all its glory and to support the SF Public Press, we suggest you pick up a print copy of the newspaper for $2 at a location near you.

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The comic strip is told from the perspective of a real life San Francisco day laborer named Alberto whom Gaynor interviewed for the story.

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It explains some of the history of sit/lie laws in San Francisco.

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. . and they use photos to report on testimony at City Hall hearings.

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Haight-Ashbury neighbors — including none other than our dear friend Gabriel Haaland (!) and Sit/Lie proponent Arthur Evans — star in one of the frames. Gabriel wins, of course!

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We’re super excited about this and believe it can serve as a great tool to educate the public on the sit/lie issue. Please help spread this around by emailing your friends and sharing this post on facebook, twitter, etc. by simply clicking on the icons right below this text.

Last weekend's street events show how culture and community flourish when we gather in public space

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Stand Against Sit/Lie found lots of supporters in the Mission this weekend.

Stand Against Sit/Lie has a fun and productive weekend of outreach in the Mission District.

It was a beautiful weekend in San Francisco, and Stand Against Sit/Lie was out in the streets of the Mission District talking with supporters, educating voters, and continuing to build the coalition that will defeat sit/lie in the November election. Check out pictures from the weekend on our Flickr page.

On Saturday we hit the Mission Community Block Party (on 22nd St. between Bartlet and Mission), which boasted outstanding performances, delicious food, a community mural project and more.  The event was a fundraiser for the Mission Community Market.  Starting soon, the Mission Community Market will happen every Thursday 4-8pm at the same location and will be a “community marketplace that celebrates the Mission’s unique identity by promoting healthy eating, emerging businesses and community programs in a safe and beautiful public space.”

Our friends at Rock the Bike delivered the volume for the performances with their pedal-powered amplified sound system.

On Sunday we hit the Mission pavement again, this time for Sunday Streets, an amazing reoccurring event where long routes of streets in different San Francisco neighborhoods are opened to people and closed to car traffic for several hours on Sunday morning/afternoons.  While talking to cyclists and pedestrians at Sunday Streets, we were able to speak with a reporter doing a segment for the public radio program, Philosophy Talk. (Be sure to listen next Sunday at 10am on KALW 91.7 FM when they will philosophize about human rights and the sit/lie ordinance).

Public space is for community and culture

Both the Mission Community Market and Sunday Streets are perfect examples of the fantastic things that can happen when public space is reclaimed and inhabited by people.  Community and culture are given room to breathe and flourish.  We should be encouraging more and more events like these and we should be fostering such positivity in our city’s public spaces on a daily basis, not just on special occasions.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has been a strong supporter of Sunday Streets. A press release from the Mayor’s Office announcing the 2010 Sunday Streets season said, “Sunday Streets events create a stronger sense of community in every neighborhood they touch and throughout the City.”  We wholeheartedly agree.  And that’s why we are so puzzled by the fact that Mayor Newsom has introduced a proposed sit-lie ordinance that would take our city in precisely the opposite direction and which would have such a negative impact on our neighborhoods by closing our public sidewalks to community and culture.

We had a great time doing community outreach this past weekend and look forward to many more such efforts over the coming months.  Please join us! Sign up for email alerts at the top right corner of this page so you can find out how you can get involved.


Mission Sunday Streets

The Marsh Youth Theater/Dance

Mission Community Block Party

Full Lotus Against Sit/Lie

Radio Habana Social Club

Ferocious Few on the Sidewalk



Bike-powered music at Mission Community Block Party


Great Day Against Sit/Lie at the Haight Street Fair

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Passerbys at the Haight Street Fair were overwhelming supportive.

We had a wonderful day out at the Haight Street Fair on Sunday where we shared a booth with the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council.  We handed out flyers and stickers and spoke with countless voters and visitors to San Francisco.  Our interactions with folks were ovewhelmingly positive and supportive.

The San Francisco Chronicle spoke with Ann Dufrane who visited our booth to show support and get some stickers for herself and her dog Franklin.  Here’s an excerpt from the Chronicle coverage:

Local resident Ann Dufrane perused the stalls wearing a “Stand Against Sit/Lie” sticker, referring to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s efforts to make sitting or lying on sidewalks illegal during certain hours. Dufrane’s dog Franklin had a sticker too.

“I just have one word for our government wanting to pass something like this: stupid,” she said. “Ridiculous would be a good word too.”

Franklin seemed to agree with the political sentiment and sat down in the middle of Haight Street, the sticker placed prominently on his head.

See more pics at our Flickr page and as always, if you have any photos of people doing fun things on the sidewalk, please add them to our Flickr pool.


Ann Dufrane told the San Francisco Chronicle that the sit-lie law is "ridiculous."

Ann's dog, Franklin, sported a sticker and got a mention in the Chronicle as well.