Isn’t the unpermitted sale of bacon-wrapped hot dogs the most victimless crime imaginable? The SF Giants and the city’s Department of Public Health feel otherwise, and have launched a new wave of enforcement against the hot dog carts.  
A Monday Reddit post went semi-viral in the local Reddit-verse, celebrating how there appeared to be a crackdown on bacon-wrapped hot dog carts around Oracle Park on game days. The original poster, who seems not a fan of this cult-hit local delicacy, declared, “I saw department of public health and sfpd rounding up dirty dog carts and now there is none in sight and this new sign is around the park (the other side is in Spanish).”

Woah, no more dirty dog vendors
byu/Debate_enlivens inSFGiants

The signs say, “No Unauthorized Vending. Items subject to confiscation under DPW Article 5.9.”

SFGate looked into this, and found that there is indeed a coordinated bacon-wrapped hot dog vendor crackdown, which that site reports is an effort by “the Giants and a task force involving several San Francisco government agencies.” That outlet adds that “The San Francisco Department of Public Health confirmed to SFGATE that health inspectors were at Oracle Park for Monday’s Giants-Cubs game,” though it did not report a specific statement from the Department of Public Health (DPH.)

The DPH does occasionally post to social media about the alleged health hazards of buying hot dogs from unauthorized street vendors.

The Giants organization did lend a statement to SFGate, merely saying of the crackdown, “It is self-explanatory.”

Oh, it’s self-explanatory, alright. The Giants’ concession-stand syndicate doesn’t want fans coming into the stadium with bellies fully of items that are vastly more delicious and affordable than anything you can buy in the pricey confines of Oracle Park.

And social media posts indicate there are no similar crackdowns after the game, when the ballpark's vendors are closed, which seems to prove the lie about this being some public health and safety effort.

These unpermitted hot dog carts have generally been seen as a scourge under the London Breed administration. There was a similar crackdown on the carts before last November’s APEC summit, an effort that brought controversy when a Public Works employee was caught kicking over a hot dog vendor’s cart.

The Breed administration also oversaw a mass busting of hot dog vendors in Union Square in the wake of the infamous 2021 large-scale Union Square smash-and-grab robberies, though these two crimes seem wholly unrelated, and it’s difficult to imagine how hot dog carts discourage people from shopping downtown.

Heck, the only crime I see with the hot dog vendors is that a bacon-wrapped hot dog now costs $10 or more, when they were generally around $4-$5 before the pandemic.

Related: SF City Hall Vows Crackdown on Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog Vendors for APEC [SFist]

Image: John D. via Yelp