District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy recently proposed legislation that would prohibit the "assembly, disassembly, sale, offer of sale, distribution, offer of distribution, or storage of bicycles and bicycle parts" on public streets.

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen piles of bikes and bike parts on our sidewalks," Sheehy told SF Weekly.

Bill Barnes, legislative aide to Sheehy, told Hoodline that the legislation was a response to constituent calls regarding quality of life issues created by sidewalk chop shops. 

Sheehy's legislation defines a chop shop as a sale on public property with:

• five or more bicycles
• a bicycle frame with the gear cables or brake cables cut
• three or more bicycles with missing parts
• five or more bicycle parts

If the operator has a valid business license, or if the bike's owner is present during a repair, no enforcement would be taken. Additionally, items from a garage sale or that are being used in connection with a nonprofit-sponsored event would be allowed.

At last Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, Sheehy proposed changes after constituents and other Supervisors argued that his legislation would burden police with enforcement, and that Public Works was better suited to take the lead. 

Last week's amendment authorizes Public Works to seize bikes and parts after issuing a citation; anyone who could demonstrate lawful ownership over the items would be able to retrieve them after 30 days.

Sheehy said in a July 10th presentation to the Board's Land Use and Transportation Committee that his legislation will streamline how calls to 311 are handled.

According to Barnes, if parts appear to be abandoned, the call is referred to Recology for pickup. In other cases where parts are found on public property, calls are referred to Public Works, and in some instances to SFPD. 

"The goal is to create a uniform process," Barnes said. "The issue that we are really solving is clearing up the sidewalks, but it's not a problem that we should criminalize. It's about how we get those calls responded to in an affective way." 

"We're continuing to fine tune and talk to others about doing a rollout in the fall," Barnes said, adding that the legislation will be heard again in September after the Board returns from summer recess. 

Some community and homeless advocates believe the legislation may target low-income individuals and doesn't reduce the demand for stolen bikes and bike parts. 

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, wrote an op-ed to the Examiner criticizing the proposed legislation. 

“Some of our local politicians are using the issue to play on voters’ frustrations and anger about not only bike theft but also tent encampments," she wrote, "combining the two issues into one piece of an ‘all show and no go’ legislation."

Others are more optimistic. Chris Cassidy, a representative with the SF Bicycle Coalition, told Hoodline, "We've reviewed the amendments under discussion and many are positive. More could and should be done to see the scourge of bike theft addressed by city leaders."

Want to check out where in the city bike thefts are most frequent? We've mapped more than 700 bike thefts from 2016.