In the Neighborhood : Anaheim: Backing Away From Impasse on Street Vending

Complaints against Anaheim street and truck vendors flared last summer for the first time since 1986, the year the city passed an ordinance restricting residential street sales. Some residents and business owners claimed that the vendors--nearly all Latino--ignored the ordinance. Vendors, they said, cut into local businesses, congested traffic and dropped litter; vending lowered their property values. Residential vending, they argued, was a blight and should be banned outright.

Vendors and their supporters countered that livelihoods of and services to very low-income people were at stake and the real issue was failure to adequately enforce a basically good ordinance.

Efforts to negotiate a solution fizzled and the city approved a residential vending ban.

Vendors sued the city, and in a decision one resident called “a scathing indictment of the city,” a state appeals court ruled that the ban was illegal and discriminatory. The city will not appeal the ruling but has asked the state Legislature to revise the law to allow cities to ban vending. Meanwhile, Anaheim will form a committee to negotiate a new city ordinance.

COMMUNITY ACTIVIST

AMIN DAVID, resident of Anaheim for more than 20 years and chairman of Los Amigos of Orange County, neighborhood issues and Latino business group:

Not only does the vendor provide the goods to buyers, but he cashes checks, gives credit, and during the last decade vendors have served as distributors of information to our community. They’re tremendous sources by which information could be provided to very low-income people, the people who make the beds at the hotels and the busboys, the dishwashers.

Vendors pass out information about AIDS prevention. Recently they helped to pass out flyers for the Cinco de Mayo celebration. They have passed out information about where on Thanksgiving people could go for free meal. We haven’t been as good a spokesmen as we could have explaining the services that vendors provide.

ATTORNEY

SALVADOR SARMIENTO, has represented vendors since 1987

I hope the city will form a committee made up of vendors, city officials, business owners, single-family homeowners and apartment dwellers, and ask them to write a new ordinance.

I’m happy the litigation is finally at an end and that the vendors can rest. A lot of people’s jobs were on the line. Now they can go back to work. This process has politicized the vendors. Now when someone’s running for office the candidates will recognized this group.

The vendors know they can’t be liked by everybody, but they want to work in a way that pleases as many people as possible.

I doubt if the city is going to be able to (get) a state-wide statute to prohibit vending in residential areas, but it will be sad if the city goes to the Legislature because it will be telling me they still want to do something to get us out of town.

CITY ATTORNEY

JACK L. WHITE

We want to establish a committee that can work this out, and an appeal would have driven people from the middle ground. We want to allow the vendors to make a living, while also protecting the residents of the affected neighborhoods.

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Population: 266,406

Population by race and ethnicity: Anglo: 57% Hispanic: 31% Asian: 9% Black: 2% Other: 1%

Population change since 1980: Anglo: -10% Hispanic: +122.3% Black: +158.8% Asian and other: n/a

Source: US Census

Census programming by Times Analyst Maureen Lyons

RESIDENTIAL VENDING IN ANAHEIM Jan. 1, 1986 California legislature prohibits cities from banning vending from vehicles on city streets; cities, however, may regulate vending.

Nov. 18, 1986 Ordinance adopted requiring vending trucks to supply trash containers, to move frequently, to operate only between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. and not within 40 feet of an intersection or 500 feet of a school.

Aug. 11, 1992 In a report to city council describing the growth of Anaheim street vending, code enforcement officials write: “As growth occured (over the past five years), vendors started to park for hours at the same location, which resulted in traffic congestion and the accumulation of food wrappers, cups, bottles, paper plates and the deterioration of public and private property. Vendors who previously sold only produce began selling grocery items such as canned goods, chips, pastries, toiletry items, dairy products and cigarettes.”

Aug. 25, 1992 City council votes 3-2 to ban street vendors from residential areas.

Sept. 1992-May 1993 Series of legal actions by vendors keeps ordinance from being enforced until case can be decided by State Court of Appeals.

May 26 Fourth District Court of Appeals rules unanimously that city ordinance blocking street vendors is illegal and discriminatory. The court writes: “Did Walt Disney’s studio begin in a residential garage and Carl’s Jr. Restaurants originate with pushcart vending? 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.”

June 22 City council votes against appealing court’s decision.