Sidewalk Economics : Illegal Vendors Eke Out Slim Profits on Streets of Pacoima

Walk out of the sanctity of Mary Immaculate Catholic Church on any Sunday morning and you step into the laissez-faire world of street market capitalism--with a Latino flare.

On this block at the intersection of Van Nuys and Laurel Canyon boulevards you can buy just about anything a street vendor can think to sell, from cassette tapes to cowboy hats to frozen coconuts.

Here, within strolling distance, you’ll find a bustling roadside economy--most of it illegal--that surpasses that of most any other neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley for the sheer number of street vendors.

Every Sunday morning this Valley street corner is transformed into a Mexican mercado, with families in church clothes--little girls in pink chiffon dresses, boys in pressed pants and combed hair--browsing among the key chains, fresh fruit, bandannas, car mats and leather belts stenciled with the names of Mexican states.

Up to 20 vendors--the number varies--set out their goods the way you find them in many Mexican towns--neatly stacked or arranged on blankets spread out on the sidewalk.

It is not a scene unique to this block. At the El Tigre supermarket parking lot a few blocks away, a lone trumpeter dressed in a full mariachi outfit plays for tips to the sound of recorded accompaniment.

The karaoke mariachi.

In that same lot, a young man in a T-shirt charges customers to tint their car windows. Another man shines shoes nearby.

But the heart of all this colorful and chaotic bustle is Van Nuys and Laurel. It’s a scene not appreciated by everyone.

Neighbors and merchants have for years urged police and city officials to clamp down on the illegal roadside vendors, complaining that they leave litter and draw business away from legitimate shops and restaurants. Except for catering trucks and other motorized vending carts, sidewalk sales are illegal in the city of Los Angeles.

In response to the complaints, city officials are drafting an ordinance to legalize street vending--but restrict it to designated areas. That proposal, sponsored by Michael Woo, a city councilman and candidate for mayor, is making its way through the City Hall bureaucracy and may not be adopted for several months. In the meantime, understaffed police say they usually check into a problem only when they receive complaints. And lately, they say, there have been few complaints.

Calls for crackdowns are of no concern to the vendors. They really don’t know about them. At Laurel Canyon and Van Nuys, they continue as they have for years, hawking their wares, trying to squeeze a few dollars out of the Sunday church crowd.

On a recent sunny Sunday morning, two ice cream vendors, a man selling freshly sliced fruit and another peddling bags of deep-fried flour snacks called doritos , set up shop across the street from the red brick Mary Immaculate church.

“It’s a difficult living,” said ice cream vendor Pancho Torres, a leathery-faced native of Jalisco, Mexico, whose take is a meager $10 or so each Sunday and $4 a day during the week.

“It’s better than begging,” Gabriel Murrio, the dorito peddler, said as he waited for Sunday morning services to let out. “Or robbing.”

While Mary Immaculate’s parishioners account for most of the vendors’ clients, the relationship between the church and the vendors is less than divine.

The Rev. Tom Rush said the number of street vendors has become so overwhelming that the church has instituted a policy of prohibiting them on church property.

Rush said he sympathizes with anyone who tries to make an honest living, but he said the church--like the temple in the New Testament that is overrun by vendors and money-changers--is not the place for street sales.

“We’ve had people who complain and we’ve had people who buy from them, and that keeps them coming back,” he said.

Besides, Rush said, the vendors take away customers from the church when it has sales to raise money for parish activities.

Teresa Rios of Panorama City and her husband, Felipe, were among the dozens of families milling about the busy intersection. She and her family walk past the vendors every Sunday as they head to and from church, and each time the knickknacks and toys on the street catch the eyes of her three children.

On a recent Sunday, Teresa and Felipe finally broke down and bought their sons, Javier, 2 1/2, and Frankie, 6, each a cowboy hat.

“They see other kids with the sombreros and they ask for sombreros,” Teresa Rios said with a shrug.

A block from the church, six cousins who live in adjoining homes were preparing their pushcarts with huge blocks of ice and bottles of juice to sell shaved-ice cones called raspadas.

Domingo Martinez is one of the ice cone salesmen. He said the $25 or so he and his cousins earn each weekend goes to help pay the rent or to support families in Mexico.

“In reality, we don’t do it for fun or joy,” Martinez said. “We do it to stay ahead.”

On occasion, the police will stop them and dump their ice in the garbage, Martinez said. But that only halts business for the day, he said. The next weekend, Martinez said, it’s business as usual with another block of ice. “We see no other way,” he said.

Walk around the corner from the church to a supermarket parking lot and you’ll find a couple of young vendors selling Latin music cassettes in the shade of a catering truck’s awning.

One of those youngsters, Francisco Aguilar, 17, said he has peddled tapes for about four years. He makes 60 cents for each $2 cassette he sells. On a good Sunday, he says he can sell 50 tapes, earning $30.

“You can make more money gangbanging,” he said.

Francisco said he literally walked into the job.

One day, he stepped into a record store and the owner asked him if he had a job. The next thing Francisco knew, the owner had him selling tapes on the street, he said.

Many vendors say they come into this work by chance through a friend, relative or acquaintance. For many it’s a weeklong job, while others simply use their weekend sales to make ends meet.

Across the street from the supermarket was Enriquez Lopez, 18, who offered a dozen ears of corn for $3. He worked out of the back of a beat-up blue pickup truck parked in a dusty, empty lot. Lopez, a student at San Fernando High School, earns $11.50 for a few hours of corn-selling on Sundays.

Lopez said he got into the job through a friend. The salary, he admits, is meager and that is why he wants to find other work. Besides, Lopez said, it’s getting harder and harder to earn a living out there.

“There is a lot of competition,” he said as he gazed at a man selling car mats nearby. “Everyone comes from the Valley to sell here.”