Steamed Hotdog Vendors Urge County Supervisors to Modify Health Rules

Instead of slathering mustard and relish on wieners Tuesday, a handful of hotdog vendors urged the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday to make their dog-eat-dog lives easier.

Boiling mad, the hotdog salesmen asked the board to modify rules that they contend are driving them out of business. The disputed health regulations require that vendors haul their carts each night to a commissary that can store their buns and meat and also wash their stands.

The vendors complain that these commissaries charge exorbitant rents, maintain inconvenient hours and are too far away.

“This law was designed to put hotdog carts out of business,” said Mort Diamond, the San Fernando Valley’s self-styled “hotdog king” and leader of the protesters.

Diamond has butted heads with the bureaucracy before. Last year, Diamond quit the business in disgust and gave away his last 350 hotdogs rather than comply with the controversial regulations.

In asking the supervisors to help, Diamond reminded them of an inscription prominently engraved in stone in the board’s meeting room.

“Right above your heads here--I don’t want to sound corny--but it clearly states that this county is founded on free enterprise,” Diamond said.

The supervisors seemed sympathetic to the wiener lobby’s plight.

“I heard this two years ago and I thought it was a racket then. I still think it’s a racket,” Supervisor Kenneth Hahn said to applause from the vendors in the front row.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich introduced an emergency ordinance to allow any vendor operating fewer than three carts to park them elsewhere and to have the carts cleaned at a carwash. The matter was postponed until May 29 to allow the county counsel to determine if the county could help make life easier for the vendors.

But two commissary owners, sitting across the aisle from the hotdog contingency, vigorously disputed the vendors’ contentions. They argued that the commissaries help ensure that what the hotdogs consumers eat is not contaminated.

“We’re not here to rip anybody off, we’re just providing a service,” said Gabriel Garciamendez, the owner of One Stop Foods Co. in Los Angeles.