Anaheim Council Votes 3-2 to Ban Street Vendors

Saying that people have a right to live in neighborhoods free of commercial enterprises, the City Council voted Tuesday to ban street vendors in 30 days.

After a 3-2 vote, the council voted unanimously to ask both the homeowners and the vendors to meet within the next month to seek a compromise that would allow the city’s 153 licensed vendors to stay in business.

Two such meetings within the past week failed when leaders of the preeminent homeowners group refused to attend, saying that they had been threatened by the vendors.

“I hope that both sides will sit down . . . and maybe find a way” to compromise, said Councilman Bob D. Simpson, who voted with Councilmen Irv Pickler and Tom Daly to ban the vendors. “I don’t see what either side has to lose.”

But Amin David, president of Los Amigos, a Latino business group that supports the vendors, said Tuesday night’s vote to ban them gives homeowners no reason to negotiate.

“It’s ludicrous,” David said. “If the vendors are to be banned in 30 days, we have no negotiating power.”

Mike Kowalski, spokesman for Neighborhoods Opposed to Street Vendors in Anaheim, or NOVA, said his group will meet with the vendors, but will not negotiate away any homeowner’s right to a commercial-free neighborhood.

“Although we speak for thousands of residents, there are 277,000 residents in this city and we would not begin to think we represent all of them and can negotiate away their property rights,” Kowalski said. “We are sorry that this is an issue where one side has to win and one side has to lose, and we are sorry that people will lose their jobs. But this is strictly a zoning issue.”

Salvadore Sarmiento, the vendors’ attorney, said that if the ban is put into effect, he will file a lawsuit to try to have it overturned.

“I don’t see what other choice we have,” he said.

Working from the backs of vans and trucks that they park on the street, the vendors sell a variety of items including produce, groceries, cigarettes, clothes and furniture.

NOVA has said that the vendors park for hours and even days in front of their homes, create excessive noise and leave trash. Some vendors have been accused of selling cigarettes to minors, urinating on lawns and threatening residents who have lodged complaints.

Leaders of the Anaheim Street Vendors Assn., which represents about 60 of the city’s vendors, said that their members obey the city’s regulations and should not be punished because others violate the rules. Instead of a ban, the group pushed for increasing the fines for violations and for arresting violators and impounding their trucks.

COUNCILMAN STRIKES BACK

Tom Daly retaliates for mayor’s blast against him regarding vendor issue. B5