Anaheim Street Vendor Ban is Suspended : Litigation: Appeals court issues temporary stay to study merchants’ request for injunction to stop law’s enforcement.

Enforcement of a new Anaheim ordinance banning street vendors from residential neighborhoods was temporarily suspended Friday by a state appellate court, an attorney for the vendors said.

The emergency stay was granted by the 4th District Court of Appeal after the vendors’ attorney filed an appeal, seeking to overturn a Superior Court judge’s decision to reject a request for a suspension of enforcement.

The City Council passed the ordinance last month after some residents complained that vendors are noisy, leave litter and attract large crowds to their quiet streets. On Wednesday, code enforcement officers began ticketing vendors who were in violation of the law.

The vendors, who have protested the city’s action, went to court last week asking that a Superior Court judge grant them a preliminary injunction that would have suspended enforcement of the law, pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the ordinance.

Orange County Superior Court Judge William F. McDonald denied the vendors’ request. Salvador Sarmiento, the attorney for 18 vendors, then asked the appeals court to overrule McDonald.

The appellate court justices have stayed the ordinance until they can determine whether or not the injunction should have been granted.

Sarmiento said the appellate court’s ruling Friday was encouraging. “By granting this stay, the court believes the appeal might have some merit,” he said.

More important, Sarmiento said, the ruling “allows the vendors to go back (to the residential streets) and sell.”

Anaheim City Atty. Jack L. White could not be reached for comment.

There are 153 licensed vendors in the city and more who are unlicensed, selling items ranging from groceries to cigarettes from trucks parked primarily in the downtown and Disneyland areas.

Michael Brown, a member of Neighborhoods Opposed to street Vending in Anaheim, known as NOVA, said that the group was “outraged” by the court’s action.

“The vendors destroy the neighborhoods,” Brown said. He added that the vendors honk their truck horns as early as 5 a.m., attract drug dealers and leave garbage.

“Why should a commercial business be allowed in a residential neighborhood?” he asked. “They make the place look like a ghetto. We don’t want them.”

The vendor issue has also become a hot political topic in the city’s mayoral race. Mayor Fred Hunter opposed the ordinance, saying he did not want to put people out of work. His opponent, Councilman Tom Daly, supported the law, arguing that the vendors might be able to relocate into vacant stores throughout the city.