Street vendors feel the heat

Claudia Arias folded the dollar bill and made the sign of the cross before placing it in her apron pocket.

The first dollar, Arias said, is always for the church.

“It’s my grandmother’s secret,” she said in Spanish on a recent morning as she stood on Santee Street waiting for customers. “It’s good luck. If I do this, I will earn lots of money.”

That’s what Arias is counting on.

She has been selling hot dogs out of a small motorized cart in downtown Los Angeles for nearly a decade. But this is her first day back at work since December, when her cart was impounded for the fourth time.

Arias, a green-card holder from El Salvador, is among hundreds of immigrant vendors who make their living selling tacos, fruit, corn and ice cream on the streets of Los Angeles. She is also one of many who say they are being pushed out by the revitalization of downtown.

“When downtown was ugly, they didn’t say anything,” said Arias, 35. “Now that it’s pretty, they want to get rid of the hot dog vendors.”

In September, Los Angeles police officers launched a crackdown on street sales, enforcing laws that had been largely ignored for years, impounding carts, issuing citations and arresting vendors for misdemeanor crimes.

The enforcement is part of the Safer City Initiative, designed to reduce crime in and around skid row.

“We are not the hot dog patrol,” said Police Capt. Andrew Smith. “It is but a tiny slice of the enforcement we do. But part of changing the culture of lawlessness is enforcing the laws that are on the books.”

Smith said the vendors can still sell food on the streets, as long as they follow the law. For Arias, that means having the required business and health permits, using precooked hot dogs and moving her cart every hour. The law also prohibits her from grilling hot dogs with bacon, a popular Mexican treat whose preparation county health officials consider unsanitary and unsafe.

Business owners, who say the vendors create unfair competition, applaud the crackdown as long overdue.

But the immigrants and their supporters counter that they are entrepreneurs who have helped build the sidewalk culture and deserve to be part of the new downtown without unrealistic restrictions.

“This is the way of actualizing their dream because they came here to work,” said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of the Central American Resource Center. “Unfortunately, their dream has become a nightmare because they have to be watching the cops.”

LAPD Sgts. Randy McCain and Kevin Royce are well known in the fashion district. When they are patrolling, often with health inspectors, word spreads quickly among vendors.

“This street used to be lined with carts -- not anymore,” Royce said as he drove down Los Angeles Street.

As they pulled around a corner, two women took off running down Santee Alley, abandoning their fruit carts. The officers got out of the car and called the local Business Improvement District.

“I’m on 12th and Maple,” Royce said. “Can I have someone come by and pick up some carts?”

McCain said he isn’t trying to take money out of people’s pockets. He’s just trying to do his job.

“I’ve always been fair,” he said. “I’ve given them break after break after break.”

As he waited for a truck to load up the carts and dump the fruit, McCain chatted with Mostafa Hassan, the manager of Hot Dog Alley, who said his restaurant sales have jumped 40% since police stepped up enforcement.

“There were laws being violated but no one was paying attention,” he said. “It really affected our business.”

Street vendors served a purpose when there were few restaurants downtown, said Kent Smith, executive director of the Fashion District Business Improvement District. But now, he said, there is no shortage of places to eat.

“With the transformation of our area from an industrial area to a thriving destination, the appearance of these hot dog vendors on every street corner is not as appropriate as it once used to be,” he said.

In addition, Smith said much of the downtown street vending is unsanitary. “If you were a county restaurant, you would have a C-grade.... “

The county Health Department tries to control street sales and keep up with the complaints from businesses and residents, said Terrance Powell, Los Angeles County’s interim director for environmental health. There are about 7,500 licensed vending vehicles in the county, he said, and two or three times that many unlicensed vendors.

Inspectors have found tamales being sold from the backs of cars, hot dogs being grilled on sheet cake pans resting on plywood boxes, pork skins drying in backyards and full-blown kitchens in parking lots, he said.

“There are absolutely no safeguards whatsoever in terms of sanitation,” Powell said of the illegal vendors.

Arias has been working as a street vendor ever since she can remember. As a child, she sold toys and dolls on the streets of San Salvador and worked in her grandmother’s clothing shop.

But after her grandmother’s store burned to the ground during the civil war, the family had trouble making money. She sneaked into the U.S. in 1989, leaving two young daughters behind.

“I was scared,” she said, “but I was more scared being in El Salvador.”

Arias found work at a clothing factory and a fast-food restaurant. In 1993, she met a woman who was selling mangos on the street and she quickly learned the trade. Fruit vending gave her the autonomy -- and flexibility -- she was looking for.

“It’s funny,” she said. “You don’t think you are going to get ahead with this type of business, with mangos.”

But she did. In 1995, with some help from relatives, she put a down payment on a $10,000 cart and got the required permit from the Health Department and later a business license from the city.

“I felt more respected, by my compadres, my customers and the police,” she said.

Nevertheless, Arias still encountered problems. She had begun selling hot dogs, and in 2003, her cart was impounded after she was caught wrapping them with bacon. She paid about $2,000 in fines, got her cart back and returned to the street. Twice more, authorities confiscated her cart for the same reason.

She refinanced her house for the third time in as many years. At one point, frustrated with selling hot dogs on the street, she used the home equity to open a small restaurant in East Los Angeles. She had to close about six months later because she couldn’t afford the rent or insurance for her employees.

When the Los Angeles Police Department began its crackdown last fall, Arias said, she tried to abide by every law. But in December, police officers took away her cart a fourth time. She said they told her she didn’t have the required sticker from the commissary where she stored and cleaned her cart.

Arias, who has five children, decided to stop selling hot dogs for a while. And she refinanced her house again.

In January, Arias joined her fellow hot dog vendors on the steps of City Hall to protest the police enforcement. They held signs that read, “Stop the Police Harassment” and “Respect the Right to Work.” The vendors said the crackdown has caused several to go into debt, others to face criminal charges and at least one couple to risk losing their home.

“There is a lot more serious crime happening in downtown than us selling hot dogs,” said Xiomara Corpeno of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, who helped organize the vendors. “We see it as gentrification -- we see it as kicking the poor people and the ugly out.”

After three months of no income, Arias decided in March that she had to take her chances and get back to work. She needed the money.

“This was not going to defeat me,” she said. “I had to keep going forward.”

Meanwhile, she and her fellow vendors continued their fight against tougher enforcement. They were especially frustrated with the one-hour rule, saying that parking spots were hard to find and that it was dangerous to drive their three-wheeled carts around downtown.

They came up with a possible solution: a downtown vending district in which food sellers would have special permits and designated spots. They met with LAPD and city officials to talk about the possibility.

At a recent organizing meeting, Corpeno told the vendors that if the city approves a pilot project, they would have to abide by all the regulations and would have to prove themselves to the city as respectful entrepreneurs.

“It gives us an opportunity,” she said, “but we have to be successful.”

Even with a special vending district, Arias said, she still expected competition from illegal vendors -- or piratas.

“The only way we can get rid of piratas is if we are allowed to cook with bacon,” Arias told the group.

“We have to focus on one thing,” Corpeno interjected. “Do we want to focus on the issue of bacon or on the issue of selling on the streets?”

Several vendors answered in unison: “Selling!”

“OK, selling first,” Corpeno said. “One thing at a time.”

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anna.gorman@latimes.com