For Pico-Union Vendors, It’s Marked Turf : Crime: Sellers pay gang for a spot on sidewalk. Some say ending ban on sales would halt extortion.

Each set of the orange spray-painted slashes on a Pico-Union district sidewalk carries a number and a threat.

Dozens of street vendors share the marked turf--each occupying a slot the width of a parking place allotted to sellers by the 18th Street gang, which controls the area with ironfisted determination. Each weekend its members stop to collect as much as $10 in “protection” money from sellers who ply their trade at an informal flea market on 6th Street, peddling everything from corn on the cob to plastic toys.

“I think everybody just pays,” one vendor said of the weekly shakedowns. “They’re afraid. . . . It’s like Al Capone days.”

Indeed, such extortion schemes have long been the lifeblood of organized crime in budding ethnic communities across the nation. But it has rarely been as blatant as in Pico-Union, one of Los Angeles’ magnet neighborhoods for Central American immigrants. In the neighborhood just west of downtown, gang members spray-paint a number on each vending spot to keep track of their victims, then set a weekend “rent” of $4 to $10 depending on the sales.

Because street vending is prohibited in Los Angeles and many of the merchants are illegal immigrants, few report the extortion, police say.

The sidewalk vendors say the strong-arm collections began about five months ago. Gang unit detectives say they have heard of it spreading to conventional businesses in Pico-Union as well.

“It’s a new phenomenon and becoming more and more prevalent,” said Terry Wessel, a gang unit detective in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division. “And it’s becoming more organized.”

Although street vending is illegal in the city, the ban is often ignored and police enforcement is sporadic at best. The 6th Street market pops up each weekend and spans an entire block. Merchants set up tables to sell watches and music cassettes, use chain-link fences to display old sweat shirts and use new metal trash can lids to cook meat for tacos.

Ironically, some vendors said the 18th Street gang’s attention to detail has brought some order to the street--settling squabbles among peddlers competing for the same spot.

But as Martha Arevalo sees it, the gangs simply view the vendors as easy targets.

“Most of the vendors are here illegally,” said Arevalo, a spokeswoman for the Central American Refugee Center, which is based in Pico-Union. “Street vending is illegal and (gangs) know that (vendors) fear police. The gangs know they won’t be reported.”

The 18th Street gang makes its collections every Sunday, first scouting the area for police. The stalls that have been marked generally correspond to metered parking spaces. Each stall is numbered--as many as 25 on the south side of 6th Street.

“They say it’s the ‘rent’ ,” said a Spanish-speaking woman who was selling musical Christmas cards.

Another woman, a Salvadoran immigrant who declined to be identified, said she makes as little as $15 a day selling used clothing on weekends, only to give $4 to gang members.

“We don’t have a choice,” she said.

A reporter and a photographer had no difficulty observing the collections last Sunday.

Two young men and a boy, who served as a lookout, methodically approached every peddler on the street. The young men were “dressed down”--wearing the baggy clothing favored by gang members--and sporting quarter-inch haircuts. A tattoo on one proclaimed “18th Street.”

The vendors appeared to hand over the money without resistance, sometimes sharing a laugh with them. “I guess they feel like they can’t do anything else but laugh about the situation,” said a man who sells used clothing and Christmas decorations.

But some of those who pay believe that the gang provides a service, Arevalo said.

“I’ve talked to some street vendors who feel (they have) more protection from the gangs than the police,” she said. “They say a gang member will help them from somebody who is robbing them.”

Los Angeles police are frustrated by vendors’ reluctance to turn to authorities.

“These people are crime victims,” said Officer Brian Gilman, a senior lead officer assigned to the neighborhood. “We’re trying to open up lines of communication, obtain their cooperation.”

The 18th Street gang is one of the largest and most notorious in Los Angeles, authorities say, covering a vast swath around the borders of downtown and migrating to outlying areas. It has many hard-core, multi-generational Latino members and has built a reputation as one of the city’s most hated gangs, avoiding alliances with virtually all others.

Police say the gang also extorts drug dealers on its turf, knowing that they are unlikely to report the crimes.

The 6th Street market is in the heart of the area served by the Rampart Division, the busiest police division in Los Angeles. As of last week, there were 146 homicides reported in Rampart, many classified as gang-related, Wessel said.

The vendors’ fear of gang retaliation is justified, he said.

“We have to be very careful about these investigations,” Wessel said. “We don’t want to put anyone in a situation where they’re gonna get killed. These people (vendors) live on the streets, they make their living on the streets. I can’t go out and arrest people, especially gang members, without giving the victims some reasonable assurance of their safety.”

Representatives of the Street Vendors Assn.--a 500-member group of peddlers--said lifting the ban on sidewalk selling would help alleviate the problem.

“It’s another reason why vending needs to become legal and regulated,” said Angelica Garza, coordinator of the Street Vendors Assn. “If it’s legal . . . I don’t think they’d be afraid to tell the police about being extorted.”

Garza, while stressing that she did not condone extortion, noted the gang’s efficient numbering system.

“The way the gangs set it up makes sense--if they didn’t use physical intimidation,” she said. “If we legalize vending in that area . . . that’s probably a model of how to do it.”

In January, the City Council approved a plan to legalize and regulate sidewalk sales in designated areas. However, a draft ordinance has yet to come back to the council for final approval and vending is still prohibited.

Officials have not said whether the site of the 6th Street market would be an area where sidewalk vending might be legalized.

Until then, violators face penalties of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.