Street Vendors Tarnish Town’s Image, Pacoima Residents Say : Neighborhoods: A police captain notes ‘racial-ethnic concern’ in a community meeting on catering trucks and sidewalk food sellers.

Flyers billed Saturday’s event as a town hall meeting to discuss the proliferation of illegal catering trucks and street vendors in Pacoima, with Capt. Tim McBride, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division, as the featured speaker.

But McBride stood on the sidelines throughout most of Saturday’s almost four-hour session at Mt. Gilead Baptist Church as members of the primarily black audience of about 50 pointedly quizzed a Latina civic leader, a political candidate and a Los Angeles County health official.

Few questions were directed at McBride, and the meeting often took on racial overtones, as the audience complained about what they called the deterioration of their community.

“I sense a certain racial-ethnic concern here,” McBride interjected at one point.

“We all bleed the same blood,” he said in asking the black and Latino communities to work together to solve the illegal street vendor problem, which he called a serious issue. “There are laws that need to be abided by.”

Civic leader Fred Taylor said Pacoima is taking on the image of a Third World country because of the influx of immigrant street vendors into the community. Taylor is president of Focus 90s, a coalition of homeowner organizations and a sponsor of the meeting.

The coalition, whose membership is predominantly black, is closely aligned with the Ministers Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley, a group of black ministers and the other sponsor of the event.

Throughout the meeting, audience members charged that immigrants are reluctant to learn English.

“Why should I have to throw out my language?” asked the Rev. Archie Johnson, a member of the ministers fellowship. “I was born here.”

Irene Tovar, a Latina and longtime community activist, responded that California has a rich Latino history and that 81% of Pacoima residents are Latino. Tovar helped organize a new association of catering truck operators with legitimate operating licenses. Its members hope to self-police their industry to show that truck caterers are legitimate businessmen.

“We speak English here,” shouted one audience member, as Jose Martinez, president of the Latino Catering Truck Assn., attempted to answer a question in Spanish.

Tovar’s attempt to interpret for Martinez did little to placate many members of the audience. Taylor said the caterers are driving legitimate business out of Pacoima. As a result, many businesses want to drive the caterers out.

“You have to fall in line with the wishes of the community,” Taylor told Tovar.

“Vendors also are part of the community,” Tovar replied, saying licensed street vendors and catering trucks have every right to conduct business. “To make difficult the survival of one segment of the population is not the objective.”

The range of questions varied. The political candidate, Carol Rowen, a Republican running for state Senate in the 20th District, was asked what she would do to close the U.S.-Mexico border if elected. She replied that the border was a federal, not state, responsibility.

Richard Wagoner, chief environmental health specialist for the county Department of Health Services, fielded questions about the legality of door-to-door food sales, and hot-water and restroom requirements for catering trucks.

Not all critics of illegal street vending were black. Two Latino store owners complained that the vendors park in front of their stores, hurting their businesses.

However, a cause of the hostility displayed by organizers of Saturday’s event appeared to be a meeting held two weeks ago by the catering truck association, Tovar and law enforcement personnel.

“Not only were we not consulted, we weren’t even invited,” Taylor said.

Johnson, who heard about the meeting, went anyway and complained Saturday that the gathering was conducted in Spanish and that he was almost refused entrance.

Tovar said the meeting was organized by the association, not by her. “We should all work together,” she said.

But little was resolved Saturday, although the event served to vent many residents’ frustrations.

“We just had to get all this out in the open. They hold meetings and make decisions without consulting us,” Ray Jackson, a Focus 90s member, said of Latino community leaders. “The blacks in Pacoima are being left out in the cold too often. It has to stop.”