San Francisco supervisors voted today to make permanent a fee for non-city residents visiting the Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park.
The Botanical Garden, which features more than 8,000 types of plants, including many rare and endangered ones, costs up to $7 for people who live outside San Francisco.
The fee was approved by the board in 2010 to help close a budget deficit and was set to expire at the end of this September if the board did not take action.
The legislation to make the fee permanent was approved by the board in an 8-3 vote today. Supervisors John Avalos and Eric Mar were among the dissenting votes and have long opposed a fee for the garden.
The ordinance includes provisions that allow for free entrance to the Botanical Garden for everyone between 7:30 and 9 a.m. every day, as well as during all operating hours on one day per month and on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
School groups, members of the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society and sister organizations would also be exempt from the fee, according to the legislation.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
