The San Francisco Sunset District night markets are raising concerns for merchants who say they're losing business due to early road closures.More than 20,000 people packed the streets of San Francisco's Sunset District for Friday night's night market.
Night markets have been set up around San Francisco in an effort to revitalize a city that has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.Edward Siu supports the night markets. But he has concerns about what happened in the Sunset."They are not concerned about the daytime merchants doing their business," said Siu, who is chairman of the Chinatown Merchants United Association of San Francisco, which also has a branch in the Sunset.
"The daytime businesses, like grocery stores, markets, travel agencies, salons, dry cleaning. They cannot operate, because they do not have customers," Siu said. "I want us to have open communications with the merchants. We know that something like a night market is going to benefit some merchants over others," said Lily Wong, director of Community Engagement at Wah Mei, one of the night market organizers.Wong said Siu's claims are not accurate. She said based on that first meeting, several modifications were made. Streets closures began later. Parking enforcement was delayed several hours.