Pushcarts Come to Shoves : Turf War Between Rival Hot Dog Vendors in Redondo Beach Has Seen Everything but a Food Fight

A hot dog war is raging in Redondo Beach.

The combatants are John and Cathy McDowell and Antonio and Vee Colangelo, two husband-and-wife teams that sell hot dogs, sodas and chips from pushcarts along the Esplanade and at Veteran’s Park.

The issue is turf: Both families claim the right to a couple of choice vending spots overlooking the ocean in the path of hundreds of beach-goers every summer weekend. And each side accuses the other of harassment and intimidation.

The Colangelos say the McDowells cursed them and threatened to put them out of business. The McDowells accuse the Colangelos of calling them names and telling potential customers that their hot dogs would make them sick.

“He’s destroying our business and our reputation,” Cathy McDowell said recently. “He was telling people we were serving bad food.”

Said Antonio Colangelo: “It’s impossible to work in this condition. It will come to violence.”

Since April, the vendors have required police mediation at least five times, police say. And now it appears the fighting could mean trouble for all three families with pushcarts that ply the Esplanade, a 1 1/2-mile pedestrian walkway overlooking the ocean.

At least one councilman, Joseph Dawidziak, is calling for a ban on pushcart vending. He says the carts are hazardous to pedestrians and pose a liability problem for the city.

Pushcart vendors have some allies. But even council members who say they like the carts are wary about the vendors’ feuding. At the June 15 council meeting, council members asked City Atty. Jerry Goddard to suggest ways to regulate the vendors more closely.

On weekends and most summer weekdays, three families operate at least three and sometimes as many as five pushcarts under colorful umbrellas at the Esplanade and nearby Veterans Park. For long stretches of the walkway, the pushcarts provide beach-goers with their only source of food and drinks.

On a sunny day last week along the Esplanade at Avenue C, several beach-goers enjoying the sparkling ocean views expressed surprise that something as benign as hot dog vending could have so many people up in arms.

“I love the pushcart,” said 22-year-old Ovini Salea of Lawndale. “When I come with my nephews, we stay four or five hours. I can bring $5 and that keeps them full. Probably, if (the vendor) wasn’t there, I wouldn’t come here as much as I do.”

Said Ray King, a Rancho Palos Verdes plumber: “I think it kind of adds to the beach, not takes away from it.”

One of the three pushcart operators, the Goodinez family, has done business on the Esplanade without incident. The Colangelos and McDowells, however, have had frequent clashes.

One of the most bitter occurred two weekends ago, when the McDowells set their pushcart next to the Colangelos’ and the two began exchanging angry words and insults. The McDowells contend that the Colangelos told customers their food was bad.

Antonio Colangelo, who pointed out he was here first, said, “I don’t say nothing really, just that she was selling those turkey dogs.”

The stalemate ended when the McDowells started giving away sodas and hot dogs.

“From 10 (a.m.) to 3 (p.m.), I sold just one soda,” Colangelo lamented this week. “(They) had 30 people in line. I decided to put my cart at Avenue E and I. But we came home with no money.”

The McDowells, however, blame the Colangelos for what happened that weekend.

“He got us into a price war,” Cathy McDowell insisted. “He put the signs out saying $1 for a hot dog. Then he said 75 cents. Then 50 cents. So we decided to just start giving them away. Basically, we considered it our community service weekend.”

Contributing to the conflict between the vendors is the old and confusing ordinance that is intended to regulate them.

The law, which went on the books in the late ‘40s, prohibits vending in the city’s central, downtown area, but makes exceptions for limited portions of the Esplanade, Harbor Drive, Pacific Coast Highway and Veterans Park.

The law prohibits vending within 500 feet of any restaurant and within 200 feet of any intersection. It also restricts vendors from stopping for more than 10 minutes at any location.

City officials note that the restrictions against vending near intersections would put Veterans Park and much of the Esplanade off limits to hot dog salespeople.

And the prohibition against stopping for more than 10 minutes seems to contradict another provision that leaves it to the city’s licensing department and the Redondo Beach police chief to assign territories to vendors.

But Police Sgt. Gary Wiley, the weekend watch commander, said his department does not assign territories.

“Who has a right to what location is an area that I don’t have any authority over,” Wiley said.

It isn’t surprising that the vendors are confused.

The McDowells, who have operated pushcarts in the city for the past five years, say they have relied on informal agreements with fellow vendors to stake out their turf and to stay 200 feet apart. But the Colangelos say city officials told them that peddlers are allowed to stake their claims anew every day on a first-come, first-served basis.

Assistant City Atty. Ken Simmons summed it up this way: “It isn’t clear whether the city wants to tolerate these street vendors or not.”

Randal Anderson, co-owner of Mr. BJ’s Liquor on Catalina Avenue near the Esplanade, is among those who would prefer a ban on pushcarts. He says the vendors create litter and congest the streets.

“We don’t want a carnival atmosphere,” he said. “We don’t want a Venice Beach.”

Anderson also asserts the city is violating his constitutional rights to equal protection by allowing the vendors to operate along the Esplanade. That’s because his property was downzoned from light commercial to residential in 1964 in a move that he says cost him about $50,000 in property value.

“The city says it doesn’t want businesses in this area, but meanwhile they bend over backward for these carts,” Anderson said. “If the city feels these carts are so important, than I should be that important too.”

Dawidziak, the councilman whose district includes the Esplanade, agrees. He says he is concerned that pushcarts make the city vulnerable to lawsuits because none of the vendors carry any liability insurance that would indemnify the city against accidents.

The carts, which contain propane tanks and typically are parked on the sidewalk, are a hazard to pedestrians and actually belong on the street, Dawidziak says. At the last council meeting, he proposed a motion--which won council approval--to force the vendors to set up shop in nearby parking stalls while the pushcart ordinance is under review.

Dawidziak also notes that the city received just $26 in sales tax revenue from pushcart vendors over the past five years, a small sum compared with the thousands of dollars the city has paid out in police services to mediate vendors’ disputes.

“I’m not against pushcarts. I’m against liability to the city, people who don’t pay sales tax, and fights between people over spots that don’t really belong to them,” Dawidziak said recently.

The McDowells, Colangelos and Goodinezes say they would welcome city regulations that would clarify who has what turf. But in interviews this week, all of them expressed anxiety that they would not be able to stay in business if the city required them to buy insurance.

“This is a small business,” said Manny Goodinez, a vendor for the past year. “If the city is going to ask for the sky and the moon to operate the cart, then the only thing we can do is find another location.”