For five days out of the week, the folks of Tacos 5 y 10 get to work at the edge of Mid City. They sell Mexican food from Guerrero, Oaxaca and Tijuana. Their hustle begins at 6 a.m. in the morning.
Why it matters: Daniel Martinez’s microbusiness is part of an ecosystem that fuels this city. A 2015 report notes that street vending is a $504 million industry in L.A. — that number is probably more robust now almost a decade later and with inflation.
Vendors have been working on the streets of L.A. for decades, but a lot of it was in the shadows — and carried with it the risks of fines, or worse.
Why now: Earlier this year, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance that eliminates many “no-vending” zones. The Hollywood Walk of Fame, for example, is a famous — and lucrative — spot where street vendors were prohibited, and this vote was a win for them.
Still, vendors and the city have some differences to work out. There’s a May 16 deadline for the two sides to either settle or go to court.
For five days out of the week, the folks of Tacos 5 y 10 get to work at the edge of Mid City.
By midafternoon, the corner of Hauser Boulevard and Apple Street is already bustling with street vendors — someone is selling Pokémon toys at one spot, another table is set up with secondhand goods and, a few feet away, a team of two is pushing elotes. Drivers cruise by at a glacial pace, stuck in traffic looking hungry, or stressed.
The taco team starts to set up at 3:30 p.m., unloading tents, a grill, their hot and cold food sections and a couple of tables and chairs for seating. They move pretty quickly; within 30 minutes they turned a bare street corner into an al fresco taco booth.
Daniel Martinez starts setting up the food stand that he and his family helped build, offering Oaxacan and Tijuananese cuisine in the West Adams community of Los Angeles.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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Daniel Martinez, the co-owner behind Tacos 5 y 10, forgot water gallons, so he jumps in his pickup truck and heads back home, just a few streets north.
It’s not yet 5 p.m. (their starting time for selling), but the flames are firing up on the grill and out comes el trompo de al pastor with chunks of pineapple. It’s a sight to see, but really the attractions here are the handmade tortillas as their bellies bubble up on the grill. The scent of warm corn and grilled meat waft by, battling the 10 Freeway overpass’ junky air.
Daniel Martinez and Marlo Ortiz prepare the el pastor meat before the open for business.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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By this time, the other street vendors are wrapping up. It’s spring, so the sun is still out, but the traffic is diluting.
A curious person gets out of her car and checks out the menu. After mulling it over a few minutes, she orders the first meal they sold that day.
Her dollars went to support a street vending business, one of about 50,000 in the Los Angeles area.
She probably didn’t know that Martinez’s hustle began at 6 a.m. that day.
#274: L.A. is often called the street vending capital of the country, and for good reason. Our street food has so much diversity, whether it's served out of a truck or a puesto. And it's not just food — people sell sunglasses, clothes, groceries... It can a great hustle for people who want to be their own boss,
#274: L.A. is often called the street vending capital of the country, and for good reason. Our street food has so much diversity, whether it's served out of a truck or a puesto. And it's not just food — people sell sunglasses, clothes, groceries... It can a great hustle for people who want to be their own boss,
Martinez’s microbusiness is part of an ecosystem that fuels this city. A 2015 report notes that street vending is a $504 million industry in L.A. — that number is probably more robust now almost a decade later and with inflation.
Vendors have been working on the streets of L.A. for decades, but a lot of it was in the shadows — and carried with it the risks of fines, or worse.
It was just a few years ago, in 2018, that the state decriminalized street vending. After that, each county or city had to apply its own health codes and permit rules.
We’re talking about working class communities that make less than $20,000 a year that you’re expecting them to [push] through this blueprint cart approval process to sell hot dogs on the street.
— Juan Espinoza (in previous chat)
He was a lawyer who represented street vendors in 2022 to pass the updated legislation.
A Tacos 5 y 10 worker sets up the dining area for the food stand that's on Hauser Boulevard, north of Adams Boulevard.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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And earlier this year, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance that eliminates many “no-vending” zones. The Hollywood Walk of Fame, for example, is a famous — and lucrative — spot where street vendors were prohibited, and this vote was a win for them.
Still, vendors and the city have some differences to work out. There’s a May 16 deadline for the two sides to either settle or go to court.
'A legit way'
Back at Tacos 5 y 10, Martinez knows about the local requirements and permits to sell food. He admits he is working on them to formalize everything to run a smooth operation, but “the process is exhausting” and time consuming.
For him, the process to become permitted is worth it as an entrepreneur — he says he thinks about payroll, working with vendors and filing his taxes.
Marlo Ortiz begins heating up the stoves before service begins at 5 p.m.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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“At the end of the day, you have the liberty of selling and making your own money and doing it in a legit way for you to prove that you [are] actually doing something to society,” he says.
It’s not always easy. Martinez says he didn’t pay himself a salary last year because he needed to raise wages for his three workers and pay the increase in produce prices as inflation has gone up.
Bringing his culture to L.A.
Martinez, 30, is an Angeleno by the way of Tijuana. He grew up there before he came to the United States 15 years ago with his family.
Like many others, the pandemic thrust him into changing course and beginning a small business. Martinez has a business management degree from Cal State Northridge and wanted to apply it in real life. He and his mom, who is a co-owner of Tacos 5 y 10, chose to create a fusion of Mexican traditions from Tijuana, Oaxaca and Guerrero — the latter two states are where his parents were raised.
He and his mother start prepping at 11 a.m., dicing, slicing and marinating the goods. Together they make enough to sell 140 orders on busy days.
A Tacos 5 y 10 worker serves a tluyuda.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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The name Tacos 5 y 10 comes from an open air swap meet that sets up on the sidewalk in Tijuana, Martinez explains, describing his childhood with fond memories. It was a place to gather, be happy, eat and enjoy.
“For me there's no way to go back home,” he says. Cooking this food at the stand most nights, “is what reminds me of home.”
Their menu has a little bit of everything Mexican — tlayudas, platos de carne, spicy salsas, a mean guacamole, horchata and, of course, tacos. Martinez also tries to bring a vibe: sometimes having a speaker with music and setting up string lights to illuminate their food stand in the quiet neighborhood.
At 5 p.m. sharp hungry customers line up at the Tacos 5 y 10 food stand in the neighborhood of West Adams.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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LAist
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The concept behind Tacos 5 y 10, Martinez says, is to create a meeting place for folks to have a good time. Yes, the food is important, but the service and atmosphere is what sets businesses apart.
“You can go to La Chancla, El Gato Market or even to La Placita Olvera, and it's all about family and spending time with others, like having a good time,” he says.
And I think that's the motivation I have to keep hustling and to keep pushing this.
— Daniel Martinez, co-owner of Tacos 5 y 10
He has plans to use the taco stand as a catapult to create more business and opportunities. He wants to introduce people to the things he loves and knows — he’s already doing it with his family’s food, and he’s also thinking about music and comedy (one of his other passions).
The end of the team’s shift winds down at 10 p.m. The same time the nearby eateries, like Alta and Vicky’s All Day, on Adams Boulevard close.
The difference with Tacos 5 y 10 is that they leave the corner with no trace they were there. But Martinez and his team will be back at 3:30 p.m. to set up the next day, and probably the day after.
Sometimes we see a pop-up on the street we are like 'Argh, another pop-up,' but you don't take into account the hours, the hard work, the fear of being on the street... We take street food for granted.
— Daniel Martinez, co-owner of Tacos 5 y 10
After today, I know we have to respect this hustle.
New data finds 75K detained had no criminal record
By Leila Fadel | NPR
Published December 10, 2025 8:14 PM
GEO Group Adelanto ICE Processing Center detention facility in July. The privately-run facility is among many holding ICE detainees.
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Patrick T. Fallon
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
Data shows that in the first nine months of President Trump's second term, around 75,000 people arrested by ICE did not have a criminal record.
The details: Numbers provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project, a joint initiative of UCLA and UC Berkeley Law were analyzed by NPR. President Trump has repeatedly said that in enforcing immigration policy, he would deport criminals, rapists and the worst of the worst.
Keep reading... for an interview with Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, on what it means and why it matters.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump has repeatedly said that in enforcing immigration policy, he would deport criminals, rapists and the worst of the worst. But new data reveals that in the first nine months of the president's second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 74,000 people with no criminal record. That's more than a third of the total ICE arrests in that period. Those numbers were provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project, a joint initiative of UCLA and UC Berkeley Law and analyzed by NPR. For more, I spoke to Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. And I started by asking him what this says about the Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement.
ARIEL RUIZ SOTO: Well, at first, it contradicts the earlier messaging from the Trump administration that it's focused on the worst to the worst and targeting criminal convictions. However, recently, the administration has also said that anybody here in the United States without legal status will be subject to deportation in the future.
FADEL: Well, let's get to what is a crime and what's not. We hear from the administration not just the claims that they're arresting rapists and gang members, but also, they say that anyone in the country without proper paperwork is a criminal. Is that true that being undocumented means you've committed a crime?
RUIZ SOTO: Under immigration law, entering the country without proper authorization is a lower offense compared to those that we colloquially think are criminal convictions in a more criminal system, meaning, for example, murder, rape, drug abuse or something else like that that could get it to be higher.
FADEL: What do we know about the other two-thirds of these arrests? Do they all have criminal histories?
RUIZ SOTO: No. Among the other two-thirds, about half of those are actually people with a criminal pending charge but not yet proven guilty. Of those that do have a criminal conviction, we know from previous reports from ICE and experience that we've done research on that the majority of those criminal convictions tend to be traffic violations or lower-level offenses.
FADEL: Was that surprising to you?
RUIZ SOTO: I didn't think it was surprising because it's been happening over months. I think the visibility has been surprising. And perhaps the other aspect of this that has been also not transparent is this is just for ICE arrests. We don't know yet how many arrests are being made by Border Patrol across the different cities they're now targeting to consider the full impact of this new enforcement.
FADEL: What has this meant for immigrant communities, mixed-status communities and families when it comes to their presence in the United States and their relationship with law enforcement and the government?
RUIZ SOTO: Well, the direct impact is on those people that are here without status. Many of them are not going outside their homes. But I think the bigger impact here is that mixed-status families are also affected. The fact, for example, that families may forgo seeking benefits that are eligible for their U.S. citizen children because they're afraid of potentially being detained or arrested, that actually has implications for U.S. citizens and many of these citizens. In fact, 5.3 million U.S. citizen children have one parent who is undocumented in the United States, and that could actually make a significant difference in their separation.
FADEL: What would you say to people listening who say, well, I mean, people should not have entered without status, and this is the consequence?
RUIZ SOTO: Well, it's clear that migrants who are here without status are subject to deportation and arrest, but people have access to due process. They need to have an opportunity to present their claims to why they should stay in the United States. And if in the end of that litigation, it is determined that the person has to leave the United States, and that should be the case.
FADEL: Ariel Ruiz Soto is a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. Thank you so much for your time.
RUIZ SOTO: Thank you.
FADEL: We reached out to ICE for comment and have not heard back. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published December 10, 2025 5:14 PM
The Varnish's iconic vintage cash register, a symbol of the speakeasy era that defined downtown L.A.'s cocktail revival.
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Courtesy Eric Alperin
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Topline:
A trio of bartenders who trained at The Varnish — the influential speakeasy once hidden behind Cole's — are reuniting for a one-night, classics-only pop-up at Firstborn in Chinatown. The event offers glimpse into the cocktail style that helped reshape L.A.'s drinking culture.
Why now: This is the first time in years that multiple Varnish alums are reuniting behind one bar, arriving at a moment when interest in L.A.'s cocktail history has resurged. With holiday crowds in full swing, a classics-only menu also offers a grounding, back-to-basics counterpoint to the season's usual excess.
Why it's important: The Varnish was a defining force in L.A.'s modern cocktail revival. The bar, which opened in 2009, brought Sasha Petraske's precise, curated, classic approach to cocktails — a counterpoint to the city's previous culture of showy and sweet drinks — and remains influential long after his passing.
On Monday, Los Angeles travels back in time. Well, sort of.
The Varnish, the famed speakeasy hidden behind a secret door at the back of Cole’s French Dip, will be reconstituted for one night only as part of a special pop-up at Firstborn in Chinatown.
(Meanwhile, Cole's itself will be open through the holiday season, with its last night of regular service planned for Dec. 31.)
The iconic bar, which shuttered in 2024 after a 15-year run, holds a special place in the hearts of many Angelenos, who believe it's where L.A.’s modern cocktail revival truly began. The event reunites three bartenders who all came up through The Varnish’s famously exacting school of cocktail-making. Kenzo Han (recently named Esquire’s Bartender of the Year) cut his teeth there before moving into roles that established him as one of L.A.’s most respected classic-cocktail technicians. Wolf Alexander and Miles Caballes emerged from the same pipeline.
One night only
Kenzo Han, bar director at Firstborn and former Varnish bartender, is hosting two fellow Varnish alumni for the Monday pop-up.
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Ron De Angelis
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Han is now Firstborn’s bar director, where he leads a tight, classics-leaning bar program. The restaurant sits inside Mandarin Plaza, where chef Anthony Wang turns out playful comfort dishes with Chinese and American influences. It’s a lively, unfussy neighborhood hangout just off Broadway, surrounded by neon, noodle shops and family-style restaurants.
The Varnish connection
All three bartenders trace their lineage back to Sasha Petraske, who, in 2009, co-founded The Varnish with Eric Alperin and Cedd Moses, the owner of Cole’s French Dip.
Petraske traded '90s flash for pre-Prohibition craft: fresh citrus over sour mix, precise technique over bottle tricks, elevating cocktails from party fuel to art form.
Miles Caballes brings his Varnish training back to the bar for one night.
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Courtesy Firstborn
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Wolf Alexander, another Varnish alum, demonstrates the precise technique that defined the speakeasy's approach.
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Courtesy Firstborn
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The Varnish became the city’s clearest expression of Petraske’s cocktail philosophy, where his playbook of precision, restraint and quiet hospitality took root on the West Coast. (Petraske passed in 2015.)
Han, Alexander and Caballes all trained in that environment, absorbing the Petraske rules of clean builds, tight technique and no-nonsense cocktails.
What to expect
For one night only, from 6-10 p.m., the trio will channel that tradition through a Varnish-style menu: curated classics only, no custom builds, with all cocktails priced at $20. Two featured drinks nod directly to the bar's lineage. The Spring Blossom — created at The Varnish — combines mezcal, French aperitifs, including Suze and Lillet Blanc, mole bitters and a grapefruit twist. Death & Taxes features scotch, gin, sweet vermouth, Benedictine (a herbal liqueur), Angostura and orange bitters, finished with a lemon twist.
On the food side, chef Anthony Wang is reviving his cult-favorite Blood Orange Chicken Sando ($20), served with radicchio, alongside a limited run of his Shanghainese-style McRib ($24) — a playful, sweet-and-sour riff built around tender ribs and “all the stuff” that made the original such a guilty pleasure.
The blood orange chicken sandwich at Firstborn from chef Anthony Wang.
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Ron De Angelis
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Expect a casual, walk-in-only atmosphere where guests can grab a seat at the bar and let the cocktail nostalgia wash over them.
Whether you were a Varnish regular or only heard the stories, this pop-up is a rare chance to see that style alive again — familiar faces, bespoke cocktails and the kind of muscle-memory bartending that defined an era of L.A. drinking culture. For newer drinkers, it’s a glimpse of the cocktail philosophy that shaped the city as we know it.
It’ll likely get busy early, and the food specials may run out fast — but that’s part of the charm. The Varnish’s legacy has always been about small rooms, sharp precision and moments you catch only if you’re paying attention.
Should LA charge more to opponents of new housing?
David Wagner
covers housing in Southern California, a place where the lack of affordable housing contributes to homelessness.
Published December 10, 2025 4:47 PM
A construction worker walks through the Ruby Street apartments construction site in Castro Valley on Feb. 6, 2024. The construction project is funded by the No Place Like Home bond, which passed in 2018 to create affordable housing for homeless residents experiencing mental health issues.
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Camille Cohen
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CalMatters
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Topline:
In the city of Los Angeles, neighbors or homeowner groups who choose to fight approvals of new housing are required to pay a fee when filing an appeal. Right now, that fee is $178 — about 1% of the amount the city says it costs to process the appeal. But that fee soon will go up.
The details: On Wednesday, the L.A. City Council voted to increase the fee to $229 but rejected a proposal by the city administrative officer that would have raised the cost for appellants to more than $22,800, or 100% of the cost. Some advocates for making housing easier to build argued the city should have adopted the higher fee.
Read on … to learn what developers will have to pay if they want to fight a project denial.
In the city of Los Angeles, neighbors or homeowner groups who choose to fight approvals of new housing are required to pay a fee when filing an appeal.
Right now, that fee is $178 — about 1% of the amount the city says it costs to process the appeal. But that fee soon will go up.
On Wednesday, the L.A. City Council voted to increase the fee to $229 but rejected a proposal by the city administrative officer that would have raised the cost for appellants to more than $22,800, or 100% of the cost.
Some advocates for making housing easier to build argued the city should have adopted the higher fee.
“Appeals of approved projects create delays that make it harder to build housing and disincentivize future housing from being proposed,” said Jacob Pierce, a policy associate with the group Abundant Housing L.A.
At a time when L.A.’s budget is strained, Pierce said, if someone thinks a project was wrongly approved, “They should put their money where their mouth is and pay the full fee."
The City Council unanimously approved another new fee structure put forward by the city’s Planning Department.
While fees will remain relatively low for housing project opponents, developers will have to pay $22,453 to appeal projects that previously had been denied.
A November report from the city administrative officer said setting fees higher to recover the full cost of processing would have aligned with the city’s financial policies. Generally, fees are set higher when applicants are asking for a service that benefits them alone.
“When a service or activity benefits the public at large, there is generally little to no recommended fee amount,” the report said.
Pierce said he hoped a City Council committee would reconsider the higher fee proposal next year. With the city falling far short of its goal to create nearly a half-million new homes by 2029, he said the city needs to discourage obstruction of new housing.
“Slowing down the construction of housing is expensive for all of us,” Pierce said.
Cato Hernández
covers important issues that affect the everyday lives of Southern Californians.
Published December 10, 2025 4:16 PM
A file photo of an ink-based printer.
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Neilson Barnard
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Getty Images
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Topline:
The L.A. City Council has voted to create a new ordinance that bans the sale of certain single-use ink cartridges from online and local retailers.
Why now? L.A. is recommending that a ban target single-use cartridges that don’t have a take-back program or can’t be refilled. That's because they’re winding up in the landfill, where, L.A. Sanitation says, they can leach harmful substances into the ground.
What’s next? The City Attorney’s Office is drafting the ordinance. It will go before the council’s energy and environment committee before reaching a full vote.
Read on ... to see how the ban could work.
Los Angeles could become the first city in the U.S. to ban ink cartridges that can be used only once.
The L.A. City Council unanimously voted Wednesday to approve the creation of an ordinance that prohibits their sale. The move comes after more than a year of debate over the terms.
Why the potential ban
This builds upon the city’s effort to reach zero waste, including phasing out single-use plastics. You’re likely familiar with some of those efforts — such as only getting plastic foodware by request and banning single-use carryout bags at stores. Multiple plastic bans have been suggested, like for single-use vapes and bag clips, but now it’s ink’s turn.
The cartridges are tough to dispose of because of the plastic, metal and chemicals inside, according to the city. They’re also classified as regulated waste in the state because they can leach toxic substances into the environment, such as volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.
That poses a problem. L.A.’s curbside recycling program can’t recycle the cartridges, and while its hazardous waste program can take them, a significant portion end up in landfills.
Major printer manufacturers and some ink retailers have take-back programs for used cartridges so they can get refilled. However, L.A. Sanitation says there are certain single-use cartridges that don’t have recovery programs. These are usually cartridges that work with a printer but aren’t name brand.
How outlawing them could work
LASAN has spent months figuring out what a ban would cover — and it hasn’t been without pushback. The city’s energy and environment committee pressed the department back in September on how effective a ban would be.
Ultimately, the committee moved it forward with a promise that LASAN would come back with more details, including environmental groups’ stance, concrete data to back up the need and a public education plan.
The department’s current recommendation is that the ordinance should prohibit retail and online establishments from selling any single-use ink cartridge, whether sold separately or with a printer, to people in the city. Retailers that don’t follow the rules would get fined.
So what does single-use mean here? The ban would affect a printer cartridge that:
is not collected or recovered through a take-back program
cannot be remanufactured, refilled or reused
infringes upon intellectual property rights or violates any applicable local, state or federal law
Any cartridges that meet one of these points would fall under the ban, though you still could get them outside L.A.
The proposed ordinance will go to the committee first while LASAN works on a public education plan.
If it ends up getting approved by the full council, the ban likely would go into full effect 12 months later.
