Olvera Street Church Declares a Street Vendors’ Sanctuary Zone

The cries of “Tamales, calientitos, de pollo, carne y dulces!” fill the air and it is hard to navigate through the crush of people, many dressed in their Sunday best.

The streets surrounding Our Lady Queen of Angels Church at Olvera Street have taken on the atmosphere and aroma of an open-air market. Here on Sundays, street vendors--many of them undocumented Central American and Mexican immigrants who make up a large percentage of the parishioners--sell everything from chicharron (fried pork rind) to homemade tamales and champurrado (a hot, chocolate-flavored cornmeal drink), peeled mangoes and cucumbers. Other vendors simply buy candy, toys and music cassettes from the discount markets around downtown and resell them, at a modest profit.

Part of the vendors’ struggle to survive has traditionally been the fight waged with authorities who are trying to clamp down on illegal street sales. But now, the church has stepped in on the vendors’ behalf so that they will be able to sell their goods in peace.

Priests have proclaimed the streets around the landmark church, also known as La Placita, a safe zone in which the vendors can sell their wares. Father Luis Olivares, the pastor and an outspoken defender of the rights of the undocumented community, put the issue in urgent terms.

“Subsistence is a basic human right,” he said. “We are talking survival here. I don’t want to come across as one who disobeys the law, but this is not a time when we can be so concerned about the beauty of the city.”

And so far, police who have mounted an aggressive anti-vendor campaign elsewhere have left the vendors at the church alone.

Office Bob Lamont, head of the Police Department’s Illegal Vendor Task Force, said of Olvera Street vendors: “We’d prefer it if they’d stay in that area. They’re not allowed to sell on the sidewalks or streets but if they’re on church property or off the sidewalk or street we don’t bother them.”

This is in contrast to the response of police elsewhere, especially on Broadway and around MacArthur Park, where vendors have flocked in recent years.

Lamont said his task force has made about 1,200 arrests in the year and a half since it was formed. The unit, made up of three officers, tries to prevent the vendors from impeding traffic, and responds to complaints from merchants that the vendors are stealing their customers. Some of the vendors, on the other hand, have alleged that they are being harassed by police who confiscate their goods and treat them with unnecessary force.

Although Sundays are usually busy days, there have been no arrests in the Olvera Street area over the last few weeks, something the vendors are grateful for.

Olivares has authorized a letter, carried by many vendors, stating that they are selling as a means of survival and that they have permission to sell near the church grounds. Whenever they are stopped by the police, the vendors show their letter to the officers. In exchange for the church’s support, the vendors have promised Olivares that they will keep the area clean and open for the flow of traffic.

Unlike in Latin America and many other foreign countries where street vendors are an accepted part of the culture, the Los Angeles Municipal Code prohibits pedestrians from selling food or merchandise on public streets. Street selling from carts and trucks is authorized to those who have permits.

Recently, the vendors have begun efforts to organize and, with the help of lawyers from such organizations as the Legal Aid Foundation, the Central American Refugee Center and the Inner City Law Center, hope to persuade the City Council to allow street sales.

Their biggest hurdle will likely be the city Health Department. Even Olivares admitted that he doesn’t partake of the smorgasbord outside the door. “I don’t in Mexico, I wouldn’t in El Salvador and I don’t do it here.”

Amid the crush of about 20 vendors outside the church on a recent Sunday, Maria Antonia Valenzuela, 62, added her voice to the others hawking their wares.

Early on Friday, she set out shopping, assembling ingredients for her chicken, cheese and sweet tamales from three or four different markets. She spends most of the day in her tiny house in El Monte, preparing and filling the tamales. By evening, she usually has about 100 of them laid out on her table. She stows the uncooked tamales in her freezer until Sunday when she rises at 3 a.m. to put them into two huge steamers to cook for about three hours.

Then around 6:30 a.m., like most of the other vendors, she claims a spot on the sidewalk that will become more and more crowded--with vendors and church-goers--as the day progresses. She stands and waits, selling slowly. It isn’t until 9 p.m. that she has usually sold her last tamale and heads home.

For her two days of work, Valenzuela said, she takes in about $75, and clears perhaps $35. The Mexican-born U.S. citizen was a factory worker until she was injured two years ago. Her husband works in the same furniture factory for $4 an hour, and they have seven grown children.

“It’s a long day for a little bit of money,” said Valenzuela, adding that she will back on Sunday.