Tuesday is shaping up to be a big day for L.A. street vendors — and the customers who buy their hot dogs, tacos, fruit salads and countless other products.
Tuesday morning the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously 15-0 in favor of an ordinance that eliminates several so-called “no-vending” zones where street vending is prohibited, including on the busy Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Street vendors who’ve long opposed no-vending zones said they welcomed the ordinance.
“This is what we have fought for,” said Hollywood Boulevard hot dog vendor Merlin Alvarado in Spanish, referring to the lifting of no-vending zones.
Alvarado is among the street vendors who sued the city over no-vending zones in late 2022. The lawsuit alleges that no-vending zones conflict with SB 946, the 2018 state law that decriminalized street vending. Trial in the lawsuit is set to begin Feb. 15; street vendor plaintiffs and their advocates said that while they cheer the ordinance, they want the trial to continue.
City officials said the city ordinance could take effect in 31-40 days, depending on when Mayor Karen Bass signs it.
No-vending zones and tickets
The Los Angeles area is home to an estimated 50,000 street vendors, 10,000 of whom sell food. Over the decades, L.A.'s street vendor carts have become an integral part of the city's culinary scene, selling everything from sliced mango to the ubiquitous bacon-wrapped hot dog that has become an emblem of L.A. street food.
After years of lobbying by street vendors and their advocates, Los Angeles decriminalized street vending in late 2018, as did the state of California. But it’s taken years for local jurisdictions to work out and finesse city and county regulations.
While street vending was decriminalized in most of the city of Los Angeles, eight busy and lucrative areas like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Dodger Stadium, Universal CityWalk and several others remained off limits; vendors have since been prohibited from setting up within 500 feet of these areas, and those who do are ticketed.
The city ordinance eliminates these blanket no-vending areas, allowing street vendors to do business there; however, it would still allow no-vending zones to be set up for health or safety reasons “if there's a farmer's market, or there's filming, or around schools,” said L.A. city councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, whose district includes Hollywood Boulevard.
Katie McKeon, an attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty who is representing the vendors in the case against the city, said she sees Tuesday’s city council vote as affirmation that no-vending zones shouldn’t exist.
“The way that I see the city's actions is that they are worried about losing in court and they would prefer that a judge not rule on this case,” McKeon said. “And so they are making this 11th hour move in order to try to make the lawsuit go away.”
McKeon added that there are no plans to settle the case at the moment, and that plaintiffs want for a judge to rule against no-vending zones. Earlier this week, the city attorney’s office declined comment when asked by LAist if the goal was to resolve the lawsuit prior to trial.
Another reason the plaintiffs want their case to go to trial: Street vendors who’ve continued to sell in no-vending zones — particularly in Hollywood, where vendors brave tickets as a cost of doing business — have racked up hefty fines. The city ordinance does not provide for reimbursement.
“Our position is that a full response from the city should also include a plan to rescind and refund the past citations that have been issued in these zones,” said Doug Smith, senior director for policy and legal strategy with Inclusive Action for the City, a nonprofit that advocates for street vendors. “And so the ordinance is really important and it's really necessary, but the job isn't done.”
Alvarado said she fears that without a court ruling on no-vending zones, there are no future guarantees.
“They would still have the freedom to establish new ones in the future,” she said.
County health permits, regulations
Also on Tuesday, L.A. County supervisors gave a unanimous final nod to two measures tentatively approved last week.
One applies to street food vendors under the auspices of the county health department, who for years have had trouble obtaining needed county health permits. Until recently, the state’s retail food code was geared toward larger mobile food operations, like food trucks, and not small carts.
A state bill amending the retail food code to be friendlier to street vendors was approved in 2022. The new county permitting standards will apply to “compact mobile food operations,” such as pushcarts, operating within the county except for those in Pasadena, Long Beach and Vernon, which have their own public health departments.
Health permit fees for these street vendors will range from $309 for “low-risk” vendors selling packaged foods to $1,186 for “high-risk” vendors preparing and selling hot food items. To that end, supervisors approved a related motion from Supervisor Hilda Solis that would make low-income street vendors in unincorporated county areas eligible for a 75% fee subsidy.
The board also voted on a formal plan to regulate street vendors in unincorporated areas. Unlike in the city of Los Angeles, the county so far has not had an official program with which to regulate street vendors in unincorporated county zones, like busy East L.A. The ordinance sets official rules for these vendors, including a $604 annual registration fee. This fee would be subsidized the first year by the county’s Department of Economic Opportunity, and partially subsidized after that.
The two county ordinances are set to take effect in 30 days.
