Council to Consider Crackdown on Caterers : Ordinance: Tougher rules and higher fines are in response to sanitation and safety fears and complaints from businesses. But ice cream vendors and restaurant-on-wheels owners say only honest operators will be hurt.

Confronted with complaints that ice cream vendors and catering trucks operate without health permits and monopolize parking, the City Council will consider a proposed crackdown on the rolling restaurants that ply Los Angeles’ workplaces, parks and schools.

An array of regulations proposed by the council’s Public Safety Committee are expected to go before the full council on July 16. The new rules would impose sharply increased fines on drivers who do not carry valid health and safety permits, or who park closer than 500 feet from a school or 200 feet from some city parks.

Penalties would be increased from $25 to $100 for the first violation, from $50 to $200 for the second violation, and from $100 to $250 for each subsequent violation within one year.

The proposed crackdown was prompted by complaints from restaurant owners and residents from East Los Angeles to Beverly Hills who say the food trucks are a nuisance, compete with their business and take up premium spaces.

“What we are trying to do is bring some order and legitimacy to this industry,” said Bonnie Brody, an aide to Councilman Richard Alatorre, who helped draft the ordinance package. “The impact will depend on the level of enforcement and the degree to which the catering trucks and ice cream vendors are willing to cooperate with the neighborhoods they work in.”

In a survey last year, the Los Angeles Health Department determined that 40% of the catering trucks in the city did not have city health permits, raising doubts about the quality of the food, city officials said.

More recently, in a sweep of 45 catering trucks conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau, 95% did not have county health permits, business permits or accident insurance, officials said.

Nonetheless, the industry is lobbying hard against some of the proposed regulations, which they believe are excessive and could drive some truck operators out of business.

Of particular concern are proposals requiring operators to pay an as yet undetermined fee for a special permit to operate in Los Angeles, and to install alarms to warn pedestrians when their trucks back up.

“If an operator owns 20 trucks, that could get expensive,” said Kelley Ramirez, spokesman for the Mobile Industrial Caterers Assn. “As for alarms, an alarm won’t stop a guy from backing into a fence.”

But Brody argued: “We are not concerned about them backing into a fence. We are concerned about them running over children.”

Donald Rector, coordinator of traffic and safety for the Los Angeles Unified School District, agreed. “Ice cream vendors put kids at high risk because they attract them from four sides of their trucks, creating blind spots that make them vulnerable to traffic,” he said.

“Our concern is that their favorite locations are always near schools because that is where their market is,” Rector said. “There is an informal pattern of kids drawn to these trucks at the same time that the drivers are distracted by sales.”

Although few ice cream vendors or catering truck operators took issue with the need for increased safety precautions, many worried that the proposed regulations would be poorly enforced by police and give illegal operators an economic advantage.

“I can live with the health and safety regulations, but the additional fees could hurt our industry because it deals in nickels, dimes and quarters,” said Los Angeles ice cream distributor George Iwai.

“Our people may have to raise the price of ice cream to cover the additional cost,” Iwai said. “But an operator who doesn’t take out a permit could sell his ice cream for less.”

Five catering truck operators interviewed by The Times last week in the highly competitive roadside markets, including the chaotic garment district, expressed similar concerns.

Although each of them said they carried insurance and the required health and safety permits, all declined to show the documents to a reporter.

Among them was a catering truck operator who only identified himself as “Fouad.”

“We can’t pass the costs on to our customers because there is too much competition out here for pennies,” complained Fouad, a burly man who stared angrily at a competitor parked only a few feet away.

“The honest people won’t be able to afford to stay in business, but the illegal operator will do just fine,” Fouad said. “I’m ready to sell my business. I’m sick and tired of all these rules.”

A mile away, another catering truck operator said: “All they want at City Hall is another way to make money.”

“The mayor of Los Angeles ought to get hep,” said the caterer, who asked that his name not be used, “and find a way to bring business back to Los Angeles, not drive it out.”

Continued squabbling among so many competing interests has made it difficult to strike a compromise all can live with, Brody said.

“There are at least three catering truck companies, two ice cream vending companies, the school district, homeowners’ groups and the police involved in this issue,” Brody said. “Something is going to be done at the City Council level and we are trying to make that result as fair as possible.”