Panel Urges Districts for Street Vendors : Peddling: The first comprehensive look at the growing practice says arrests have been ineffective. Some opposition from businesses is expected.

A Los Angeles city task force has recommended sweeping changes in laws governing street vendors, including the creation of special vending districts where hundreds of Latino immigrants and others can legally peddle their wares.

The report, more than a year in the making, is the first comprehensive look at street vending in the city. It estimates that there are at least 2,000 vendors operating illegally in Los Angeles, mostly in downtown, East Los Angeles, Hollywood and Venice.

Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo said he will bring the report before the council today. He said he will ask the city chief administrative officer and the Public Works Department to begin studying the cost of implementing the report’s recommendations.

“Los Angeles is finally coming of age in terms of promoting an active street life in different parts of the city,” Woo said. “It always struck me as crazy that L.A. didn’t take advantage of its climate to encourage street vending, street musicians and other outdoor activities.”

The task force recommends creating vending districts in six communities where street-corner sales already are widespread: Pico-Union, Koreatown, MacArthur Park, Hollywood, Boyle Heights and downtown near Our Lady Queen of Angels Church.

Sidewalk sales of mangoes, tamales, cassette tapes, oranges and other items have become the principal source of income for an entire class of impoverished Mexican and Central American immigrants over the past decade.

City officials and immigrant-rights groups estimate that the number of illegal street vendors in Los Angeles has doubled in the last three years.

Some neighborhoods have been transformed into sidewalk bazaars reminiscent of Latin America, prompting complaints from store owners and community groups. Police have responded by arresting the vendors. According to the report, the Los Angeles Police Department made 2,074 arrests of vendors in the first six months of this year.

Illegal street vending is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The report concludes that “attempting to drive these individuals out of business through criminal police enforcement has not proven to be an effective means of addressing a growing problem.”

Instead, the task force--which included city officials, police, business groups and vendors themselves--recommended new licensing procedures and use of city employees to give vendors training in basic business practices.

“The criminal justice system is burdened enough as it is,” said Police Capt. Greg Berg, a task force member. “Taking police resources and using them for enforcement of street vending regulations makes no more sense than having uniformed officers enforce building code violations.”

The six vending districts proposed by the task force would be located either on one city block or at an intersection, such as the corner of Soto Street and Brooklyn Avenue in Boyle Heights.

Additional vending districts could be created. Applicants would submit proposals to the public works commissioners for approval. The number of vendors allowed in each special district would be fixed. To prevent overcrowding, annual lotteries would be held for permits.

The city task force recommended that outside these districts vendors be allowed to peddle their goods in nearly any of the city’s commercially zoned areas. Only two vendors would be allowed per block.

Many of the vendors are immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador, and immigrant-rights groups praised the report.

“This is finally an attempt by the city of Los Angeles to treat street vending as a business regulation problem and not as a criminal justice problem,” said Madeline Janis, executive director of the Central American Refugee Center.

The task force has held about two dozen meetings since July, 1989. Its 43 members include representatives of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the California Restaurant Assn., the city Department of Public Works and the Street Vendors’ Assn.

“The street vendors wanted an opportunity to transform what they do into a credible small business, rather than an illegal activity,” said Gilda Haas, an economic development planner and co-chair of the task force. “Other people felt like the situation was out of hand, that it was chaotic and that it wasn’t fair (to established businesses.)”

Haas said one of the more vocal participants in their meetings was Dora Alicia Alarcon, a 39-year-old Salvadoran immigrant and founding member of the vendors’ association. Alarcon sells mangoes at the intersection of Western Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, earning about $30 a day.

“At first, they didn’t understand what we were doing and why,” Alarcon said. “This society does not accept you as a street vendor. . . . I explained to them that in Central America this is how we make an honest living.”

Woo said he expects some opposition to the recommendations, especially from merchant groups.

“I know that in some parts of the city there has been a history of problems caused by the overcrowding of vendors and the competition with merchants,” he said. “I will be meeting with the council members (representing those areas).”

Estela Lopez of Miracle on Broadway, a downtown merchants group, said she was hopeful that the task force recommendations would benefit both street vendors and established businesses.

“You have to come up with regulations, conditions and guidelines as well as strict enforcement in order to bring an illegal activity into the marketplace,” said Lopez, who was also a co-chair of the task force. “(The street vendors) will have to succeed on the same playing field as established businesses.”