ANAHEIM : City Begins Enforcing Vendor Ban

On the day the city began enforcing its ordinance restricting street vendors, police and code enforcement officers Wednesday issued a handful of tickets to vendors operating in the city’s residential neighborhoods.

By 3:30 p.m., code enforcement officers had cited six vendors and ordered them to close up and leave. Officials said the diminished number of vendors was an apparent reaction to the enforcement effort.

“So far, we have seen very few vendors out there,” code enforcement supervisor Richard D. La Rochelle said, adding that in addition to the ordinance, the afternoon showers might have contributed to a decrease in peddlers.

The ticketing effort was mounted by code officers during the day with police to follow up in the evening. The ordinance bans street sales in residential areas but permits the practice elsewhere.

During a two-hour period Wednesday afternoon, La Rochelle and senior code enforcement officer Gary L. Moore cited four vendors, all of them operating in the downtown area just north of Lincoln Avenue.

Two of those cited claimed ignorance of the new ordinance, one insisted he was not selling, while the fourth said he was ordered to sell by his boss.

“My boss, Pedro Vasquez, told me to go ahead and sell,” vendor Ezequiel Cecena Mares, 18, said through an interpreter. La Rochelle and Moore watched Mares through binoculars from 100 yards away as he sold three sodas, a dozen eggs and assorted produce out of the back of a pickup parked in the 900 block of West Romneya Drive. Vasquez, who owns several vending trucks, had vowed Tuesday to defy the ban after the City Council refused to repeal it.

“I wonder if (Mares) was told (by Vasquez) that it would be his ticket” and not Vasquez’s, La Rochelle said. Mares could face a $100 fine. Repeat offenders risk fines of up to $500. Vasquez could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The ordinance was to take effect Sept. 25, but city officials declined to enforce the ban until after the initial round of court hearings and Tuesday’s City Council meeting, where 100 people made a last-ditch appeal for it to be rescinded. A Superior Court judge refused to issue an injunction against the ordinance last week.

The vendors’ attorney said Wednesday that he will ask the state Court of Appeal today to issue a temporary injunction that would stop the city from enforcing the ordinance.

Attorney Salvador Sarmiento, who represents the vendors, said he is not surprised that some vendors were operating in defiance of the ordinance, while others have stopped.

“There are some scared individuals, while some guys told me they’ll keep working,” Sarmiento said. “It’s a decision each one has to make.”

There are 153 licensed vendors in the city and several more who are unlicensed, selling groceries, furniture, clothes and cigarettes from the back of trucks parked primarily in the downtown and Disneyland areas, officials said.

The city’s previous ordinance allowed them to operate anywhere in the city but required them to operate only between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., to move their trucks at least 200 feet every hour and to park at least 40 feet from intersections and 500 feet from schools.

But peddling opponents said the vendors routinely violated the ordinance, were noisy and attracted large crowds who left trash at sites.

Local convenience and liquor store owners have also said the vendors provide unfair competition because shopkeepers pay rent and answer to numerous governmental regulatory bodies. Vendors, they said, have lower overhead and, because they are mobile, avoid many government inspections.

Code enforcement officers said they would be citing the vendors during the day, while the police would be citing them after 5 p.m.