Second of two parts
Re “Street Food Vendors: You Are Not Welcome”
Don’t think you are the only one to be taken aback at learning that street food vending is banned in Los Angeles, even though food trucks are a common enough sight.
It is one of the anomalies of the remarkably diverse cultural life of Los Angeles that even though the practice is illegal, trucks operate in the open, either fearlessly or unwittingly.
The East LA Community Corp. (elacc.org) is leading a citywide campaign to get the ancient ordinance overturned so that vendors, typically poor, may be allowed to breath the same clean air as 99.5 percent of Angelenos do.
Janet Favela of East LA Community Corp., is the lead organizer, charged with overseeing the drafting of a new vending law before the end of the year.
Last Thursday evening, the East LA group and the Community Financial Resource Center convened a South L.A. meeting on the subject, and Rudy Espinoza of the Resource Center was among the presenters.
“When I talk about street vending,” he said, “people are shocked to know that it is illegal.
“It is done in public,” he told the newspapers, “but people do take a risk because they are not permitted to do selling on the sidewalk.
“They could be cited by the LAPD. Oftentimes we hear the Health Dept. takes away their stuff, throws out their things.”
According to Mr. Espinoza, it is regarded as more enduring punishment to destroy their stock. If fined, they well might not be able to pay.
“I also have heard from colleagues around McArthur Park that some officials have introduced deportation proceedings.”
Why is the subject arising now?
“It is something that community-based organizations have seen as a growing need,” Mr. Espinoza said, “especially after the financial crises of the last few years. In recent times, we have seen much more street vending than there used to be.”
For the poorest of the poor, vending is a favored route of staying alive.
“The people I have talked to have really good reasons,” Mr. Espinoza said. “They are chronically unemployed. Or they lost their jobs and need to do this.
“Not only do these people need help in building their businesses, which is one of our main purposes. We also saw there was a policy need, that there is no system.”
