Rules Keep Vendors on the Run

Every weekday about lunchtime, a dozen or so food-vending trucks converge on the city of San Juan Capistrano, dispensing tacos, tortillas and other hot meals to hungry workers at local construction sites and office buildings.

The daily ritual had played itself out, for the most part, without difficulties until a new taco wagon came to town a few months ago and set up shop in a quiet, residential neighborhood.

Neighbors complained that because the wagon stayed in one place all day, it became a hangout for patrons of a nearby liquor store. They said groups of young men would stand around the wagon, eating tacos, guzzling beer and making lewd comments as neighborhood women walked past.

“The guy sells great tacos, don’t get me wrong,” said Jose Martinez, a local resident. “But here, we want to take a walk in the afternoon, and we got all these people whistling at our wives.”

The operator of the neighborhood taco wagon finally left on his own accord about 2 weeks ago and hasn’t been seen in the city since, according to residents and other vendors. But to make sure that the situation does not recur, San Juan Capistrano officials are studying ways to tighten requirements for food vendors who operate in the city.

Although everyone agrees that no other vendor has set up so permanent a stand in a residential area, the fact that so much of the city’s construction is occurring on the fringe of residential neighborhoods has prompted concern.

“We’re trying to make sure the neighborhoods are not inundated with such things,” said Planning Commission Chairman Roy Nunn, who brought the matter up for discussion at the commission’s Feb. 28 meeting.

Since that meeting, the city staff has drafted a revised vendors’ ordinance, which, among other things, would limit to 15 minutes the time that vendors may remain in any one location, according to Jeff Parker, a senior management assistant for the city.

The ordinance now requires only that a city business license be obtained and that vendors not operate near schools or on busy streets.

“The biggest complaint is that under the code now, if they park in front of somebody’s home, they don’t have to move it,” Parker said. “We want to . . . keep them moving.”

The revised ordinance is to be submitted for action by the City Council at an upcoming meeting, Parker said.

If adopted, the city would be following the lead of other Orange County cities that have tightened rules governing the growing number of food vendors. As of Friday, the number of such vendors in Orange County was 649, authorities said.

In Santa Ana, for example, food trucks cannot stay longer than 5 minutes in one place, and the vendors must wear special uniforms. In Newport Beach, push carts are prohibited. The cities of Orange and Anaheim also have strict regulations on food vendors.

While San Juan Capistrano and the other cities may regulate where and how vendors sell their wares, they do not have jurisdiction over the food itself. That responsibility falls to the county, which enforces a state law requiring that food trucks and carts maintain a clean, healthy operation.

County officials inspect the food trucks and carts at least once a year and also conduct unannounced spot inspections, according to Jim Houston, assistant director of the county’s Health Care Agency’s division of environmental health.

In San Juan Capistrano, several vendors interviewed said they already face enough regulation from both the city and county without needing more.

“If you were selling drugs on the corner, they (city officials) would bother you less than they do us,” said one hot dog vendor, who, along with her husband, declined to give her name for fear that the city would retaliate by pulling their license.

Martin Monge, a vendor for Santa Ana-based Padilla’s Catering, said that he and the other food vendors fulfill a need, especially for construction workers on short lunch breaks.

“They don’t have any other place to eat. They don’t have time to go to a restaurant,” Monge said, as he collected money from a line of hard-hatted customers Friday at the site of a new parking structure being built in downtown San Juan Capistrano.

The construction workers agreed wholeheartedly.

“If this guy don’t come around, we don’t get to eat,” worker Randy Boyd said.

Another added: “We don’t have the luxury of 2-hour martini lunches, like some of these politicians.”

Monge and the other vendors said they had encountered few complaints from either the city or nearby residents over their operations. Most, they said, are in San Juan Capistrano only for a brief time, long enough to dispense food and beverages.

Jose Barajas, who sells fresh produce from the back of his truck, said that officials of one homeowners’ association recently complained that he was spending too much time in their neighborhood. For that reason, he was reticent this past week to spend much time talking.

“Hurry, hurry,” he said of a visitor’s questioning as he shut the back doors of his truck to move along. “I’ve got to go.”