For many years, this columnist consistently supported street vendors in Los Angeles. We criticized the city when he sent inspectors to fine or evict them, often confiscating their hard-earned merchandise.
We celebrated when in 2018 street vending ceased to be a crime, and Governor Jerry Brown signed the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act. And in 2020, when the city of Los Angeles began to grant them street food licenses, once the sanitary permit was obtained.
Similarly, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors worked on modernizing the sales codes to make life easier for street vendors in the areas under its jurisdiction, with changes such as reducing or waive permit fees and end seizures. Last November the Board unanimously supported a motion by Supervisor Hilda Solis to promote state legislation to modernize the California Retail Food Code to create opportunities for sidewalk food vendors.
With their work and insistence, they have earned an opportunity to earn a living in this city.
But obtaining a license has been very difficult.
It is expensive: initially $291, in 2020 it rose to $541. In the city of Oakland, it costs only $25.
The law requires that only approved carts be used, which, according to sellers, cost up to $25,000. In addition, they often face violence, robberies and insults from gangs, bystanders and even consumers.
In fact, Real America News informed us that until a few months ago only 180 sellers had obtained license, of more than 10,000 which is calculated to sell food on the street.
In February, the state Senate began the debate on the bill SB 972, which, among other things, reforms the state food code so that it is easier for street vendors to get permits to sell food.
We support all of this.
But now, we must think of permanent solutions, based on the harmonious integration of street vendors with the rest of the surrounding community. With the residents; with the owners of small parallel businesses in the same streets.
One of the centers where they have been working for more than 20 years is in Pico Union, especially on the streets 11, 12, New Hampshire and Berendo.
A few days ago, residents of the area, organized around the Pico Union Neighborhood Council, filed complaints about the street vendors complaining that they set up their shops on the sidewalks with tarps, umbrellas, carts and merchandise, that they close access to children and elderly people who would like to walk on the sidewalks, that they block the entrances to residential buildings; who park in double lines; that in the absence of sanitary facilities, they urinate between cars; who throw rubbish in the street.
They brought their complaints to Councilman Gil Cedillo, who, in fact, has been working for a year with local businesses, neighbors, and community organizations in a “beautification effort that, ultimately, has the purpose of prioritizing public safety for all” precisely on those streets.
Now, Cedillo announced an operation to clean the streets and sidewalks and the sewage drainage system. Also, that he had secured “$500,000 to help subsidize the rates permits and purchase new vending carts for vendors in need.”
Days later, the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation and the Office of Street Services (StreetsLA) and others began cleaning up the area, vacating the streets, and began cleaning sewers and storm drains.
Many neighbors expressed their joy and relief : “What we just want is for them to move off the sidewalk,” said one resident.
Celso Hernández, owner of the Playa Las Tunas restaurant, expressed in a statement that “on behalf of more than 100 Salvadoran restaurant owners and Central Americans… I am pleased with the actions being taken under the leadership of Councilman Cedillo to ensure public health and safety and improve our sidewalks and streets.”
But for the vendors their livelihoods are in danger.
“There are many families that depend on this place, many workers, for example, my family, our income comes from here,” said one of them.
Obviously, street vendors can’t stay on those streets. They cannot go back to the previous situation. The task of the authorities and community activists is now to find other options so that they can continue working as they have done up to now or better.
Meanwhile, groups like SALEF, ( Salvadoran American Leadership and Education Fund) have been informing them about their rights, licenses and now, the search from other places to operate.
Any solution must meet the needs of community residents and local businesses, but also street vendors.
They are all Los Angeles people .