ANAHEIM : Anti-Vendors Group Wants Restrictions

Leaders of an anti-street-vending group accused government health officials Tuesday of refusing to enforce a state law that could be used to ban the sale of most fruits, vegetables and other unwrapped groceries on residential streets.

Leaders of NOVA--Neighborhoods Opposed to street Vending in Anaheim--say they will sue the city and county if officials do not enforce a state statute requiring that mobile food vendors sell within 200 feet of an “approved and readily available toilet and hand-washing facility.”

“There is no doubt that if the vendors are forced to operate in this manner it would benefit health of the people who are buying from them,” said Mike Kowalski, an Anaheim resident who is a leader in NOVA.

Vendors should be selling in business districts where public restrooms are readily available, he said, adding that with current practice “there is the danger of the spread of viruses and bacteria.”

Orange County officials said the statute provides discretion to enforcement officers and may not be applicable to the situation in Anaheim.

“Enforcement (of this ordinance) is difficult,” said Jim Huston, the county’s assistant director of environmental health. He said a mobile food vendor is required to be within 200 feet of a bathroom only when parked in the same place for an extended period. With only two inspectors of mobile food operations to cover the entire county, he added, he cannot have inspectors staking out vendors to see if they move.

“We have limited resources and lots of places to inspect,” Huston said. “But we will respond to complaints.”

Finally, county officials said the statute provides that the restroom requirement can be waived if other “proper sanitary facilities” are available.

Javier Barajas, president of the Anaheim Street Vendors Assn., said it is “ridiculous to expect us to get bathrooms in our trucks, because we don’t sell prepared foods or hot meals. We only sell produce and foods to go like apples and unpeeled cucumbers. “

He said his group would vigorously oppose enforcement of the state code, and would not accept such regulations “unless the city buys and installs (toilets) in our trucks for us.”

Anaheim Code Enforcement Manager John Poole said his goal would be to limit to 10 minutes the time vendors park in one spot to “so they wouldn’t even come under this statute.”

Currently, vendors are allowed to park for one hour in Anaheim.

NOVA’s call for the restrictions is the latest in a yearlong battle between the vendors--who sell produce, groceries, cigarettes and other items from the back of parked vans and trucks--and their opponents, mostly home and apartment owners in the areas where the vendors work.

Most of the approximately 150 vendors sell in the downtown and Disneyland areas.

The vendors say they are small-scale entrepreneurs who are trying to make a living and that they would go out of business if kept out of residential neighborhoods. Their opponents say the vendors are loud, leave trash, park for hours in front of their homes and often provide cover for drug dealers.

A state appeals court last May sided with the vendors. It issued an injunction barring the city from enforcing an ordinance enacted last year that banned vendors from residential neighborhoods. The court said state law forbids cities from banning street vending.