The Limits of Persuasive Enforcement: The Civil Service Police Unit and Street Vendors in Semarang

Street vendors who occupy sidewalks and road shoulders on Jalan Gajah Mada, Semarang, embody a familiar tension between the right to earn a living and the public's right to orderly public space. This study examines how the Semarang City Civil Service Police Unit (Satpol PP) enforces the city's public order and street vendor regulations along this corridor, identifies what supports and what hinders that enforcement, and proposes ways to strengthen it. Using empirical juridical research combined with statutory and conceptual approaches, the study analyses Regional Regulation No. 5 of 2017 on Public Order, Regional Regulation No. 3 of 2018 on the Arrangement and Empowerment of Street Vendors and their implementing instruments, together with field observations of vending zones and interviews with Satpol PP. Enforcement proves to be non-judicial and graduated: outreach, routine patrols, verbal warnings, written warnings (SP-1 to SP-3) and, as a last step, removal of stalls, applied to two designated vending zones that operate from 16:00 to 04:00 WIB under a 2025 Mayor's Decree. It is supported by clear zoning and by officers' patient, persuasive conduct, but hindered by vendors' economic pressures, limited personnel, evasive 'cat-and-mouse' behaviour, buyers who transact from their vehicles, the absence of nearby relocation sites and unmarked zone boundaries. The study concludes that enforcement is procedurally lawful but yields only temporary, deterrence-based compliance. It argues for a responsive model that combines legal certainty about zone boundaries, fixed supervision at high-risk points, buyer education, vendor self-regulation and the government's own relocation and empowerment duties.