Court Rules Anaheim Vendor Ban Is Illegal : Street sales: Restricting the mostly Latino peddlers is deemed ‘discriminatory.’ City denounces decision.

A state appeals court Wednesday ruled unanimously that Anaheim’s street vendors may continue selling in residential neighborhoods, and that a city ordinance blocking them is illegal and discriminatory.

Writing for the 4th District Court of Appeal, Justice William F. Crosby Jr. said, “It appears that the city fully intends to enforce (the ordinance) in a discriminatory manner.” Otherwise, he said, the same ordinance could be used to ban nearly all businesses that rely on transportation--from ice cream vendors and pizza delivery trucks to plumbers and landscapers.

“The United States Post Office would violate the ordinance every time it delivered stamps ordered by a residential patron to a sidewalk mailbox by means of a postal van,” he wrote.

In a 17-page decision which overturned a Superior Court ruling, Crosby also chastised city officials for apparently forgetting an American tradition.

“Did Walt Disney’s studio begin in a residential garage and Carl’s Jr. Restaurants originate with pushcart vending? If our memories serve, it is surely ironic that a citadel of capitalist success such as Anaheim would attempt to banish these small businesses from most of the city.”

Crosby also wrote that a lawsuit brought by the vendors would “likely prevail” in its scheduled trial this fall. In the meantime, the ruling upheld an injunction that has allowed the 130 or so vendors to continue working in residential neighborhoods.

The vendors, most of whom are Latino, sell a variety of products including food, cigarettes, furniture and clothing from the backs of parked vans and trucks primarily to apartment residents in the downtown and Disneyland areas. The ordinance would have allowed them to sell in commercial areas, but the vendors said they need to go where people live if their businesses are to survive.

City officials Wednesday denounced the ruling, and said the ordinance only attempts to uphold city zoning laws prohibiting commercial enterprises in residential neighborhoods.

Mayor Tom Daly said the justices don’t understand “that vending trucks disturb the peace and tranquillity of neighborhoods and create traffic hazards for small children . . . and provide unfair competition for mom-and-pop store owners who pay taxes and undergo frequent government inspections, unlike the vendors.”

Daly said the vendors’ ethnicity had nothing to do with the passage of the ordinance.

“Many of the people who opposed the vendors are Hispanic,” Daly said. “This is not a racial issue, it’s a quality of life issue.”

The ordinance was adopted by the City Council on a 3-2 vote last September after emotional hearings which were attended by about 200 vendors and their opponents. Those opponents, primarily homeowners in the affected areas, say the trucks create dangerous traffic situations, park for hours in the same spot, create noise in front of homes and harm owners of small stores.

Mike Brown, a liquor store manager and a member of Neighborhoods Opposed to Street Vending in Anaheim, or NOVA, said: “These justices obviously don’t live in neighborhoods where vending goes on. They live in million-dollar homes and not the real world. Vending is a business that is destroying our neighborhoods.”

Councilman Fred Hunter, who voted against the ordinance, used the decision to blast Daly, who defeated him last fall for mayor, saying the issue is “ugly with racial overtones.”

“The current mayor is wrong on this issue,” Hunter said. “He wants to bring Anaheim back to the 1950s when it was all lily white here. But things have changed since then.”

Attempts to reach the vendors and their attorneys late Wednesday failed.

The justices’ decision said the vendors’ right to conduct their business is “a matter of (state) law.”

Crosby said the state Legislature specifically deleted a passage of the state Vehicle Code that allowed cities to ban vending on city streets, although they may still regulate it.

“Effective January 1, 1986, cities lost the authority to ban vending from vehicles parked on streets,” the ruling states.

City officials said it will be up to the council to decide on the city’s next step, which could include an appeal to the state Supreme Court or a new ordinance that limits residential street sales without banning them.

The battle among the vendors, some city residents and small business owners began seven years ago and exploded last summer.

In 1986 the city, facing an increasing number of complaints about the vendors, passed an ordinance that limited their operation to between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., required them to move at least every hour, to stay away from intersections and schools and to supply trash containers.

By last year, complaints were again on the rise as residents said many vendors were ignoring the city’s ordinance. Those favoring a ban argued that zoning laws would prohibit them from opening convenience stores in their homes, but that people from outside their neighborhoods were operating markets on their streets.

The vendors argued that their livelihoods depended on the trucks, and that all should not be punished for the misdeeds of the few.

Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this story.