San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said he will bypass the Board of Supervisors and ask voters to decide on one of the city's most contentious issues: whether it should be illegal for people to sit or lie down on sidewalks during certain hours.

In taking the debate about the sit/lie ordinance to the ballot box in November, Newsom is reacting to stiff resistance from a majority of supervisors. They say the proposed law will unfairly target the homeless, day laborers and youth.

"It's crystal clear that the board's not serious about it," Newsom said in an interview with The Chronicle. "We're moving forward with sit/lie."

The mayor's legislation is scheduled to be heard today before the board's Public Safety Committee. But Newsom has little faith that the board will approve it without watering it down after what his spokesman Tony Winnicker called a "kangaroo court" hearing before that committee two weeks ago.

Instead of relying on the board, Newsom said he will use his mayoral authority to put a similar measure on the ballot.

The measure comes at the urging of residents and merchants from the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood who first pushed it as a way to help deal with violent thugs camping in front of businesses and homes, harassing or attacking passers-by.

Those residents became frustrated after the almost seven-hour session before the Public Safety Committee on May 10 produced plenty of heated rhetoric on both sides, but no action. It was the latest in a string of hearings on the topic before panels ranging from the Planning Commission to the Small Business Commission, including a five-hour hearing in March before the board's Public Safety Committee, and many of the commissioners expressed concerns.

"I think the board mostly has been kicking the can down the road," said Justin Buell, a 29-year-old Haight-Ashbury resident who reported being punched and kicked when he asked a group of people camped in front of his home using drugs to move. "I'm happy to see it go to the voters."

Board President David Chiu said the committee wasn't stalling, but rather asking the tough questions on many residents' minds.

"The mayor's representatives were woefully ill-prepared and had no answers for the serious questions about the legality and effectiveness of this," said Chiu, who has introduced his own measure for a neighborhood-based community court in the Haight that would also provide social services. "They couldn't explain why a half dozen laws on the books that have attempted to address the situation have failed."

Still drafting a bill

It's unclear exactly what shape Newsom's ballot measure will take, although it will probably be a citywide ban on sitting or lying on public sidewalks during set hours, officials said.

Newsom originally considered two versions of the proposal: one that applied citywide, another that restricted behavior just on major commercial corridors such as Castro and Haight streets. He put forward the citywide one.

Similar laws are on the books in numerous cities, including Santa Cruz, Palo Alto and Berkeley, although Newsom's proposal would be more sweeping. The mayor is basing his legislation on Seattle's law, largely because it withstood a federal court challenge, but that ordinance applies specifically to commercial corridors.

Regardless, a coalition of groups from the American Civil Liberties Union to the San Francisco Labor Council to sex workers, is poised to oppose it.

Supervisor Chris Daly, who cut his political teeth as a homeless advocate, pointed to the ballot-box defeat of a less-restrictive measure pushed by Mayor Frank Jordan in 1994.

"Let's go to the ballot," Daly said during the marathon May 10 hearing. "That's fine."

Opponents contend that the measure will lead to police abuse, while better enforcement of existing laws against aggressive panhandling, assault and drug use could address neighborhood concerns.

Police officials say that's not the case and that officers don't have the authority to direct someone to stop lying on the sidewalk unless a witness or victim comes forward to lodge a complaint, thereby making them a target for retaliation.

Residents 'fed up'

"Listening to my citizens and community members, they're just fed up," said police Capt. Teresa Barrett, who oversees the Haight. "They've had enough of all the uncivil behavior, the people with dogs and the random attacks on those unfortunate enough to get in their way."

Despite the organized opposition, Buell said members of his grassroots movement are confident they will prevail in what promises to be a hard-fought political campaign that Daly described as a "wedge issue."

"I think common sense will prevail in the end," Haight skateboard shop owner Kent Uyehara said. "It's unfortunate that some are making this a political issue when in reality real people are rising up asking their government for help and not receiving it."

In March, a Chamber of Commerce poll showed a sit/lie ordinance passing with 71 percent support for "a measure that prohibited individuals from sitting or lying on the sidewalks during specific hours in busy commercial or residential neighborhoods."

"We're a strong coalition," Buell said. "We're the residents, the merchants, the police. We're literally the people. We're saying enough is enough."