San Francisco voters resoundingly passed panhandling restrictions and a minimum-wage hike Tuesday night along with five other top propositions.

Five top mayoral candidates championed successful ballot measures to showcase their campaigns, including Supervisor Gavin Newsom, who sponsored Proposition M, the initiative aimed at halting aggressive panhandling. It prohibits begging in parking lots, near ATMs, on median strips, outside check- cashing businesses and on buses. It also outlaws aggressive panhandling.

Offenders could be fined or, if they qualify, attend a diversion program to deal with substance abuse and mental health problems. The campaign raised and spent more than $520,000 through mid-October. Opponents of the measure raised $8,000.

It was Newsom's second foray into quality-of-life ballot measures, following last year's Care Not Cash welfare-reform initiative, which would have replaced cash payments to homeless people with shelter and other services.

That measure, which Newsom used to lay the groundwork for his mayoral run,

is on hold after key provisions were struck down by a Superior Court judge. The city is appealing the ruling.

Prop. M was one of several measures on the ballot being championed by five of the city's mayoral candidates.

Proposition L, which will raise the minimum wage in San Francisco to $8. 50 per hour, also won easily. Mayoral candidate and Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez was the motivating force behind the measure, which will increase the hourly wage from the state's current minimum of $6.75.

A few cities have set a minimum wage; the first to do so was Santa Fe, N. M., where the City Council pegged the figure at $8.50 an hour earlier this year.

Gonzalez pointed out that the state minimum wage equated to a little more than $14,000 a year for an employee working 40 hours a week. City Hall leaders,

Gonzalez said, "need to step up and take responsibility that $14,000 a year is just not making it."

Almost 600,000 people work in San Francisco; about 13,300, or 2.6 percent,

earn less than $7.50 an hour. Another 14,000 or so earn less than $9.

The city had already shown its support for higher wages with Board of Supervisors' passage of a law in 2002 that imposes a minimum wage of $10 an hour for businesses that have contracts with the city or operate at San Francisco International Airport.

Mayoral candidate Tom Ammiano's ballot measure was Proposition G, which will create a rainy day fund that the city could use in times of economic hardship. The measure, which received little opposition, rolled to victory.

Under the plan, the city will have to put money into a reserve fund whenever revenue increases 5 percent or more from the previous year. Half the extra money must be put into the reserve, a fourth can be used for one-time projects, and the rest can be spent right away for city-funded operations, whether new or existing.

Ammiano advertised the measure as one that would bring "common sense to city budget planning. . . . The measure will require that we save money in good years so we have a cushion for economic downturns."

Over the past 20 years, growth in the city's annual budget has exceeded the proposed 5 percent trigger 11 times. If the rainy day fund formula had been in place, the city would have set aside $247 million to use during the lean years.

That could have helped with the current year's budget deficit, which started out at $347 million. Instead, the city balanced the budget mainly through increased fees for everything from bus rides to parking tickets to after-school programs, and through what amounted to a 7.5 percent pay cut for city employees.

Other mayoral candidates associated with ballot measures were Angela Alioto and Susan Leal.

Alioto supporters gathered signatures to qualify Proposition J, which also won. It requires that city provide separate shelters for homeless families, seniors and the disabled.

Alioto portrayed the measure as a cornerstone of her policy for dealing with homelessness. "Our goal is to let people on the street know there is a place to go where it's safe," she said.

Alioto said her proposal will not cost the city a penny, since it involves moving people within the shelter system. Officials with the city's Department of Human Services, however, said that complying with the measure could require opening new shelters.

Leal backed Proposition I, a measure to establish a program to pay part of the cost of child care and preschool costs for poor families. The measure, which won easily, did not specify where the money will come from.

A handful of measures landed on the ballot without the backing of a mayoral candidate.

Proposition K, which will continue a half-cent sales tax to pay for transportation projects included in a 30-year plan, won the required two- thirds approval.

Proposition F, which will allow some senior city, school and college district employees to retire early if positions in their job classification are being eliminated for budget reasons, also won handily.