Now that Super Bowl is in the rearview mirror, San Francisco is ramping up for Lunar New Year festivities. The flower market fair opened Saturday in Chinatown, the first of nearly a month of events, in honor of the Lunar New Year. Many merchants say the celebrations are essential for their bus iness too. “This is when we invite vendor from all over California to come and set up booth to sell everything related to lunar new year, starting with dry goods, festive decors and flowers,” said Donald Luu, with the SF Chinese Chamber of Commerce. The flower market fair usually falls the weekend before Lunar New Year’s Day. “It’s more than a cultural celebration, it’s also an economic driver but its also a symbol of our resilience,” Luu said. “During Chinese new year celebration for this shop is the peak month, I would say it increase 30% of our annual sales,” said Nancy Yu Law, Asia Star Fantasy owner. Law and says this are one of her busiest days. It’s a key time of year and comes at a time when tariffs have had an impact. “I don’t put that extra charge to my customer because I want them to be happy, I want them to be coming back, so the burden is on our side not on the customer,” Law said. Organizers of Saturday’s events say foot traffic in Chinatown has already picked up. “It brings thousands upon thousands of people down each and every day you can see in the streets today, the parade and we’re going to kick off everything on Tuesday as well in a month long celebration, as Chinatown goes, so goes San Francisco, so I’m so excited to see so many people here,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said. Among those who made it a point to come was Jefferey Lowe, who drove in from the East Bay. “It’s just a great opportunity for the city to galvanize itself culturally community wise obviously,” Lowe said. ...read more read less