Anaheim : City Council Postpones Decision on Vendor Law

A vote on a law that would regulate street vendors was postponed again this week after an attorney for a catering company said the proposal would hurt his client.

William Sweeney, an attorney for Anaheim-based Orange County Food Service, said the law’s provision barring all food trucks from public rights of way would cut off at least 144 of the 960 businesses the firm’s trucks visit daily.

The City Council on Tuesday continued the matter a week to give the city attorney a chance to further review and possibly revise the proposal.

The council’s latest action regarding street vendors was criticized Wednesday by Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, who called it an example of “a double standard.”

“You see how quickly they respond to a non-Latino petition?” David said, adding that the council “paid absolutely no mind at all” to the Latino vendors who earlier this year asked the council to change a law barring them from apartment areas.

The city had begun enforcing the little-known, 1926 law late last year--surprising many of the vendors whose most lucrative areas for selling ice cream, fresh fruits and vegetables are apartment neighborhoods.

In response, 27 vendors formed an organization, collected about 14,000 signatures in the Latino community and set out to request changes in the law. But during a May meeting, the council reaffirmed the law and approved the idea of further restrictions, such as prohibiting street vendors on public rights of way and doing away with paleteros or push carts.

Those revisions are scheduled to go back before the council on Tuesday.