San Francisco prepares to celebrate Lunar New Year

San Francisco is preparing to host hundreds of thousands celebrating the Lunar New Year; Thursday, organizers shared their plans for this year’s Chinese New Year parade and festival.

Police shared some of their plans for security preparations for the March parade, at the same time businesses are certainly gearing up in hopes of getting in on the festivities, celebrations and traditions.

At Lion Trading in Chinatown, Lucas Li says the Lunar New Year celebration is an important time for the community and they’re preparing for it.

“I think the most popular thing people come for are our Chinese New Year envelopes, so I think as we welcome the year of the fire horse which is 2026 they are coming to look or these beautiful horse design envelopes,” Li said.

He’s hoping for success and looking forward to the weeks-long celebration starting in mid-February.

“The Lunar New Year I would say is the single largest economic driver for Chinatown every year, small business Chinatown, workers, restaurant look forward to the month long celebration,” said Donald Luu, president of the SF Chinese Chamber of Commerce. “We have a total of 60 floats approximately 70 units different organization, is going to be a huge event.”

The celebration starts in mid-February, with a parade set for March 7. The SFPD says it’s ready to ensure it will be a safe celebration for the tens of thousands who are expected to gather.

“You can expect that you will see a full complement of uniformed officers what we will expecting in terms of specialized units, plain clothes officers, motorcycles, the full gamut of officers to support festivities in this event,” said SFPD Chief Derrick Lew.

“This season is really important to small family-owned businesses like ours because we depend on the support of the community right and we want to promote these traditions for the younger generations,” Li said.