Ban on Anaheim Street Vendors Possible

A City Council majority said Tuesday that they will vote to ban street vendors from residential neighborhoods if no compromise between the vendors and residents can be reached within one week.

After a 90-minute emotional debate between merchants and residents, the council postponed a vote until Tuesday. Councilmen Bob D. Simpson and Tom Daly said they would be willing to listen to any compromises offered then, but both said that, without an agreement, they would vote to ban the vendors.

“It appears to me that both sides are so badly polarized that there can be no compromise,” Simpson said.

There are 153 licensed vendors in Anaheim and dozens more who are unlicensed, officials said. Most sell a range of products--produce, groceries, cigarettes--in the downtown area.

Regulations allow them to operate between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. and require them to move at least 200 feet every hour.

The vendors, who are almost all Latino, said a ban will make them destitute. They have also charged that many of the residents’ complaints are racially motivated.

Councilman William D. Ehrle said he would try this week to get residents to accept anything short of a ban if they in turn received promises from vendors that they would obey any new regulations.

Councilman Irv Pickler said he would vote to ban the vendors. Mayor Fred Hunter said that he sides with the vendors.

Vendors and their supporters argued that many of their customers do not have transportation to conventional stores and must rely on the vendors to buy their groceries.

Amin David, president of Los Amigos, an Anaheim Latino business group, said that the vendors want to work with the city and would be willing to police themselves and report any other vendors who violate the city ordinances.

“There have been accusations made that the vendors deal drugs,” David said. “There have been accusations that trash accumulates around the trucks. There have been accusations of trucks selling unlicensed fruit brought in from Mexico. All of these are patently untrue of the licensed vendors in this city.”

Residents said that regulating the vendors has been tried for the past six years. They contend, however, that it has not worked, and that the only solution is a ban.

“I’ve lived in Anaheim for over 30 years, and for most of that time we were without vending trucks and we did fine,” said resident Mike Blanco. “For much of that time, we were without a car, and we walked to and from the store. These trucks are nothing more than a blight. They do not belong in Anaheim.”