PANORAMA CITY : Despite Raid, Vendor Program to Continue

Despite a weekend county health department raid on many of their students, operators of a college program that teaches street vendors to properly ply their trade vowed Monday to continue classes.

“This is another obstacle in our way,” said Penny Young, director of Los Angeles Mission College’s business and professional center. “But as far as the classes and getting information to the people, we aren’t going to stop doing that.”

The center oversees the street vending entrepreneurial program at an apartment complex in the 14700 block of Blythe Street in Panorama City. Students learn how to keep their enterprises legal, including meeting county health regulations.

On Saturday, nine Los Angeles County health workers inspected 10 locations in the eastern San Fernando Valley, including the building that houses the Mission College program. Inspectors confiscated 50 pieces of cooking equipment and one ton of food, ranging from cooked corn to prepackaged ice cream.

Street vendors living and working along Delano Street and Van Nuys and Vanowen boulevards--including several of the program’s nearly two dozen students--were among those investigated.

Young said she was disappointed that county health officials did not work more closely with her program before Saturday’s operation.

Many of the two dozen students who attend the classes are trying to make their businesses legal through sanitation and health permit education, she said.

“It’s almost as if things are not in sync,” Young said. “We’re walking parallel to each other, but we’re not seeing each other’s objective. County health is saying there is a problem to do with health issues that needs to be taken care of. We are saying we want to educate them so they can move away from that.”

But Art Tilzer, the health department director of consumer protection, said the vendors had been warned. There was no time, he said, to consult with the college.

“I can appreciate the educational tone of their approach,” Tilzer said. “But we’re talking about life and death. People die from food poisoning. The things that were being performed at these facilities were totally illegal. They did not comply with construction or sanitary standards.”

In July, building, safety and health officials found more than 80 violations in the Blythe Street complex, ranging from severe cockroach infestation to fire hazards from propane stoves being used to cook corn inside apartments.