“ Here comes the city! ”
This is the alert often heard in Los Angeles street vendor communities, and it only means one thing: stop selling, pack things up, and leave the stall.
Almost a year after Los Angeles began officially allowing street vendors as part of the Sidewalk and Park Vending, a landmark project to legalize street vending in Los Angeles, vendors find themselves caught between a complex and costly permitting system and the devastating penalties for those without a license.
Undocumented sellers have had protection against misdemeanor charges since 2019, when the Bill came into force 946 of the Senate, which decriminalizes street vending in California. But this April, Los Angeles County resumed misdemeanor charges under Governor Gavin Newsom’s emergency health order.
Vendors in Los Angeles are again at risk of deportation.
Fines for street vendors start at $ 291 and increase to $ 1, 000, fines potentially disastrous for entrepreneurs working outside the formal economy in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.
The city also resumed fines on vendors without permits in March, ending a grace period that was supposed to last for months to give sellers time to familiarize themselves with the licensing process.
Fines start at $ 250 and increase to $ 1, 01, potentially disastrous fines for entrepreneurs who work outside the formal economy in one of the world’s most faces of the planet.
Compliance motions also ended a relative golden age for street vending in the city, when street vending was decriminalized But there were no permitting programs yet, and taco stands sprouted on Los Angeles street corners like wildflowers after El Niño.
Erika Montiel, seller of crepes from 70 years, in Compton , n or they could afford to go more than a month without being able to sell when the pandemic began.
“We had to go back to work because our money was already running out. We couldn’t complete the rental, ”says Montiel. “We had no choice but to go back.”
Alone 90 sellers have the permits from both city and county, according to a spokesperson for the Bureau of Sanitation. It is estimated that 10, 01 street vendors work in Los Angeles County.
For the single mother with two children, selling her crepes, churro sundaes and funnel cakes is a job she is proud of and rejoices in. It is also his only job and his main source of income, so it is not surprising that, like other vendors, he reopened his stall, Sweet Crepes, a business he runs with his father, Felipe and his sister, Karla. , out of necessity.
Erika, Karla and Felipe Montiel pose on a Saturday afternoon in front of their business stand, Sweet Crepes, open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (Photo: Janette Villafana)
Shortly after Montiel reopened her stall, other vendors started to realize and joined her.
“It was as if all the sellers were waiting to see who was going to come out to sell, because the more sellers they saw, the more comfortable they all felt when they returned ”, says Karla, Montiel’s sister.
Yes, they were afraid of being summoned, fined or even arrested, but thanks to alerts such as “Here comes the city ”That resonate on East Compton Boulevard, Montiel and other vendors have been able to avoid such an encounter.
“That’s why I love this city, because we as vendors and residents of Compton support each other,” says Karla.
Only seven vendors have received citations for misdemeanors, an official with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health wrote in an email.
” The mere possibility of criminal prosecution could lead to deportation, ”the Los Angeles Street Vendors Campaign wrote to the County Board of Supervisors.
But according to attorney Doug Smith, who represents the sellers together with the pro bono law office Public Counsel, an executive order of 2010 of the Trump administration means that even those not charged or convicted are at risk of deportation.
According to the order, undocumented residents are on the “priority for removal” list if they have been charged or convicted of a crime, but also if committed “acts” that “constitute an imputable criminal offense.”
“The simple possibility of criminal prosecution could lead to deportation, ”the Los Angeles Street Vendors Campaign wrote in a letter to the County Board of Supervisors. “We are aware of several situations involving simple street vending citations that trigger deportation threats.”
Meanwhile, permits are expensive and very difficult to acquire.
To sell food Legally in Los Angeles, a vendor needs a permit from both the city and the county. To obtain a city permit, a vendor needs a city business tax registration certificate and a California state seller’s permit.
To obtain a county permit, a vendor must pass health department inspection, a challenge that vendors and vendor advocates say is nearly impossible because the Health was written for restaurants, not for street vendors working with limited financial resources.
Only 90 vendors have permits from both the city and the county, according to a spokesperson for the Bureau of Sanitation. It is estimated that 10, 01 street vendors work in Los Angeles County.
“The health department has told us that they basically believe that it is impossible to retrofit an existing cart to meet the standards.”
– Rudy Espinoza, Inclusive Action for the City
According to the current health code, carts that perform “complete food preparation” must have hot running water, a tank for liquid waste and a sink with three compartments: a compartment for washing hands and another two for clean kitchen utensils and dirty. Perishable foods require refrigeration units. Greengrocers face particular challenges: no cut fruit can be kept on ice and fruit cannot even be sliced on a cart without breaking the law.
“The health department has told us that it essentially seems impossible for them to adapt an existing cart to be compliant,” says Rudy Espinoza, executive director of Inclusive Action for the City, a non-profit organization that supports vendors in Los Angeles.
Los City permits are issued by StreetsLA – the city’s Office of Street Services, which has added the Park and Sidewalk Sales Program to its pothole and “tree emergency” duties – and cost $ 393 annually until July 2021, when the price will increase to $ 541. County health permits cost $ 746 annually for “high risk” mobile food facilities that handle perishable food and do full food preparation, and $ 485 for “low risk” facilities, which sell prepackaged foods such as ice cream, candy, or snacks. Sellers also have to pay a one-time fee of $ 746 for inspection of your cart.
“For suppliers that earn just over $ 15, 000 per year, this is a staggering percentage of their income, ”wrote the law office Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp in a letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Barbara Ferrer, director of the Department of Public Health. “In comparison, the annual fees for attorneys in the state of California (a profession with an average annual salary of $ 168, 000) amount to $ 544, approximately three tenths of one percent of the average annual income ”, they added.
The city has issued 746 citations this year, wrote a spokesperson for the Bureau of Sanitation in an email: 485 to sellers without permits and 168 to vendors for COVID-related violations – 20, charges resulting from the motion of the Town Hall March amment.
The moment Merlin Alvarado met his eyes with the StreetsLA official, the hot dogs knew he would take home a fine . Around 5: 30 pm, the official returned to Alvarado’s position and handed him a fine of $ 500.
On Sunday, October 4, Merlin Alvarado, a traveling hot dog vendor in Hollywood, was having what she described as a normal day at work when, around 2: 30 pm, it was noticed that a car was passing slowly by his post. Looking closer, he knew immediately that it was StreetsLA, formerly known as the Bureau of Street Services (BSS).
“Whenever we see the police or the BSS coming, we just pack our things and leave to avoid getting a fine,” says Alvarado.
This time there was no early warning: the moment he looked at the StreetsLA officer, he knew he was going home with a ticket. She was not wrong. Three hours passed when, around 5: 30 pm, the official returned to Alvarado’s post and handed him a fine from $ 544.
“ Just if he sees you, you know they are going to fine you whether you move or not, “says Alvarado. “He already has all your information, so if he doesn’t give you the fine right there, you know it will come by mail.”
During the past five years as a street vendor in Hollywood, Alvarado has had similar encounters more times than he can remember. For her, a fine of $ 500 is not the only thing that worries you when you sell on the street. She says that as salespeople, you should also be careful around the Los Angeles Police Department.
Citing previous encounters with law enforcement, she described the verbal threats used to get her and other vendors to stop selling. In one case, a police officer threatened to arrest her if he saw her again. He remembers telling the officer that he was not committing a crime with his street vending. According to Alvarado, the officer responded: “No, I am not going to arrest you for being a street vendor, I am going to arrest you for disrespecting the law. I have many ways to arrest you without having to arrest you for selling on the street. “
Misdemeanors issued by deputies may result in arrest.
At that time, Alvarado was selling in an area that was considered a no-sale zone.
It’s improper for LAPD officers to threaten arrest, says attorney Doug Smith, because the city only issues tickets. Misdemeanors, issued by sheriff’s deputies on behalf of the county, may result in arrest.
“They literally come, intimidate and scare you so you don’t want to go back to the same place,” says Alvarado.
Street vendor Max Hipolito, who sells tacos, mulitas and quesadillas in East LA , shares similar stories about clashes with law enforcement and StreetsLA. In a recent incident, his food was thrown at him.
On Saturday 30 of September, Hipólito had just started selling his food when officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH), together with the sheriff’s officers, they surprised him and other vendors.
Hipólito was told that he was about to receive a fine of one thousand dollars.
“At that moment they began to check all our food. We had a lot of food when they arrived because we had just started selling, ”he says. “So, since it was a lot, they threw everything in the trash: the food, the sauces, everything.”
He 26 September Max Hipolito was caught by Streets LA and the sheriff’s office. He shared that because he did not have the proper permits, he was given a verbal warning after all of his food was thrown away. (Photo: Community Power Collective)
Since the pandemic began, he has had two similar encounters . In both cases food was thrown at him. However, this was the first time he saw DPH officers arrive with deputies.
“We just feel sad because it costs us a lot of work, time and money to prepare the food, buy the ingredients, and that everything ends up in the garbage”, says Hipólito.
That day, before the officials left, Hipólito says the DPH gave him a verbal warning and reminder, telling him: “Next time it will not be a warning, it will be the fine of $ 1, 01 ”.
The idea of getting that high fine crosses his mind every time you decide to go out and sell.
Street vendors have noticed an increase in law enforcement since the pandemic began.
“It’s difficult to go out and sell after a situation like that because sometimes that means having to apply for loans or borrow money,” he says. “It could be as fast as a week or, in some cases, weeks , depending on how much you have lost. ”
Street vendors like Hipólito and Alvarado have noticed a increase in law enforcement since the pandemic began.
City authorities they can show up as often as every day, they say, making the chance of getting fined that much higher. Hipólito says that since his last meeting with the authorities, he remembers that the city and the sheriff’s department stopped by his post a few more times, only this time they fined the vendors who were down the street.
And although they understand that the city has public health as its main concern and priority, They ask if Los Angeles will ever really support street vendors.
“It’s a pocket knife double edged, ”says Alvarado. “On the one hand, street vending is legalized in the city, but on the other hand, the process to obtain permits is very complicated.”
Although the pandemic makes serving famous Los Angeles street food even more challenging, the fight to preserve Los Angeles delicacies is not new. Police and vendors have clashed before, in the 19th century, when furious officials demanded the removal of the “tamales wagons” from the city streets.
Street sales grew in the decade of the 90 when violence in Central America brought refugees to Los Angeles. Excluded from traditional employment channels by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1990, immigrants resorted to selling street food as a means of survival.
Back then, as now, sellers could be fined up to $ 1, 01 and misdemeanor charges, wrote academic Fazila Bhimji in 2010 in an anthropology journal. Those who were unlucky were serving sentences of six months in prison.
In 1990, a play starring actual salespeople portrayed entrepreneurs so steeped in rules and regulations that they gradually became robots. In 1994, the City Council approved a pilot program to legalize the sale in up to eight districts. Vendors and their families packed council meetings and celebrated when the legislation passed, but the program was only formalized in one district, MacArthur Park. Six months after its launch, no permits had been approved and after two years, legislators let the program end.
About 2008, a group of vendors, organizers and non-profit organizations came together to continue the fight, with the particular participation of the East Los Angeles Community Corporation (ELACC, for its acronym in English) and the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. Caridad Vásquez, a saleswoman in Boyle Heights of Colima, Mexico, organized and fought for the rights of sale before the defenders had allies in the city government.
On average, sellers are estimated to earn as little as $ 10, 01 per year in sales, and even that amount seems to be declining from the start of the pandemic.
“Charity is the oldest,” says Rudy Espinoza of Inclusive Action for the City. “She is really the godmother of the campaign. She comments on it and says, ‘I was the one who went to ELACC and told them the shit that was happening right here on Breed Street.’ “
“When the salespeople told her she was crazy, she kept going,” she adds.
Vendors continued to fill council meetings before the virus, according to Espinoza, outnumbering the opposition by margins of 15: 1st 23: 1.
The city councilor Mónica Rodríguez, who was the first author of a motion on 17 calling for a temporary “moratorium” on street vending, says the council acted out of necessity when it resumed law enforcement in response to COVID – 19.
“More of 200. 01 people in this country have died, ”he says. “We had the most imminent concern to protect public health. That was what drove the decisions we made in March. ”
Vendors fill the Chambers of the Council in LA City Hall dressed in T-shirts that say “Legalize Street Vending” (Photo: Inclusive Action for the city).
Councilor Rodríguez emphasizes that minor crimes and, therefore, deportations are the responsibility of the county. In fact, the city only distributes fines.
“If you want to talk about county policy , you should talk to the county, ”he says.
The 16, the Board of Supervisors approved a new pilot program to build an affordable vendor cart that could meet health code.
When asked if the county will take action to protect vendors against Immigration and Customs Enforcement or armed law enforcement as part of their pilot program, a spokesperson for Supervisor Hilda Solís, author of the pilot program’s motion, referred the question to the Department of Consumption and Commercial Affairs (DCBA).
A DCBA spokesperson referred the question to the Department of Public Health (DPH, by its acronym LA County
DPH declined to comment on the matter.
However, the program indicates a rare investment in the sellers themselves, rather than in law enforcement procedures, according to Espinoza. But the program is expected to take four to six months to complete, and there is no guarantee that a code-compliant cart can be developed or mass-produced.
Richard Gomez, an engineer at food truck maker Vahe Enterprises, has been trying to design a cart that can pass health inspections at his Slauson factory .
Considering that he had a model that was finally “bulletproof”, Gómez lo sent to the Department of Public Health last week. The DPH rejected it, requiring six cubic feet of refrigeration, at least four cubic feet of dry storage, and a five-gallon water heater.
“Can you imagine someone pushing up to four and a half feet of cubic refrigeration, plus a pot of tamales and a pot of hot water?” Gómez comments.
The 26 September, the City Council also approved $ 6 million in CARES Act funds for “micro-entrepreneurs” to be distributed through the Los Angeles Regional COVID Fund. The money will help street vendors, according to Councilmember Gil Cedillo, who wrote the motion with Councilors Monica Rodriguez and Curren Price. Sellers can apply for grants up to $ 5, .
But Espinoza says that the money, largely because it is federal assistance, is difficult to access for the sellers. Why wasn’t the money allocated to a separate fund just for sellers?
Espinoza can’t help but feel frustrated with city legislators.
“Sometimes, because of the The way they do these shows, I wonder if they just want us to fail, ”he says.
Vendors without permits in Los Angeles face different struggles during this pandemic.
Some are struggling to pay their rent; others have noticed a decrease in their sales; and some run the risk of being exposed by traditional businesses that charge “rent” to vendors for selling on the sidewalk, an unpleasant situation that Erika Montiel, owner of Sweet Crepes, has personally experienced during the pandemic.
“We recently had to move down a block because the owner of the tire store where we sold our crepes charged us for place our stand on the sidewalk, ”says Montiel. “He wanted to increase our price by selling there for three days. Eventually we got tired and left there. ”
“I see that my sales have dropped a 80% ”, says Merlin Alvarado. “Before, on a good Saturday, I made $ 156 a day, and now I barely earn $ 70 up to date “.
Charging rent from vendors for traditional businesses is prohibited by the Safe Street Vending Act, says Doug Smith. Anyway, Montiel and his family are working to get a truck , or food truck, to avoid having to pay for a few feet of curb. They hope the truck will free them from having to deal with the city completely.
Los Montiel They’ve heard that a food truck is more likely to have everything the city requires, which gives them a real shot at getting their permits.
The owner of Sweet Crepes in Compton begins preparing orders for her customers within minutes of opening her stall. (Photo: Janette Villafana)
But, of course, everything has a cost and it is never so simple as it is presented.
“It’s too expensive,” says Felipe. “We saw that it could be up to $ 90, 01 [para un camión de comida], which is too much for us at the moment. ”
Assuming that the city or the authorities do not show up and force them to close, the family sells three days a week for about four hours up to date. Their sweet crepes, churros lokos (sundaes), and funnel cakes vary in price, but each menu item costs less than $ 9. And although nights are usually quite busy, it is not guaranteed that every day they will have successful sales. That is why the Montiel family knows that it will take more than a couple of months of sales to expand the business with a food truck.
On average, sellers are estimated to earn as little as $ 15, 01 per year in sales, and even that number appears to be declining since the pandemic began. However, more and more people are forced to sell on the streets after losing their jobs.
Hugo Zamora of Hugo’s Wood Fired Pizza in Boyle Heights had no idea that his side job would quickly become his full-time job.
“I used to work in a restaurant in Beverly Hills that closed due to COVID, so I had to start something on my own,” says Zamora.
Wearing gloves and a mask, Zamora throws a piece of dough into the air and says that he works more than 17 to 19 daily hours in street vending. During the day, he sells empanadas in the Los Angeles fashion district, and in the evening, he sells wood-fired pizza in his garden, making sure that extra precautions are taken to follow the new social distancing rules.
The owner of Hugo’s Wood-fire Pizza in Boyle Heights cuts one of his Naples-style pizzas from comfort from the backyard of your house. (Photo: Janette Villafana)
“We receive most of our orders over the phone, and that are in person never take long to do, so no one is waiting more than five minutes ”, says Zamora.
Back in Hollywood, Merlin Alvarado says he has noticed that sales are declining, which has caused him to fall behind in rent and invoices. And the businesses that were once booming with tourists and the huge crowds that walked the streets of Hollywood have now practically disappeared.
“I see that my sales have dropped a 30%. Before, on a good Saturday, I would earn $ 100 per day, and now I barely earn $ 70 a day, ”he says.
“Most of us live from day to day,” adds Alvarado. “People need to know that behind each street vendor there is a family that lives and feeds on that vendor’s business.” Copyright 2021 Capital & Main
This report is a collaboration between Capital & Main and LA Taco.
Janette Villafana is a multimedia journalist from Santa Ana, CA who often covers stories that highlight diverse communities, their issues , successes and personal stories. Jack Ross is a Los Angeles-based writer and entrepreneur.
LA Street Vendors Are Caught Between COVID and the Law
