Street Vending Enforcement Inconsistent : New Law Should Be Approved; Agencies Should Stop Canceling Out Each Others’ Efforts

There is a certain gross inconsistency about the way public money, time and other resources are being used in the matter of sidewalk vending, which is still illegal here in the San Fernando Valley and in Los Angeles as a whole.

On the one hand, for example, there was Mission College in the northeast Valley in August, using a rather generous $250,000 grant from the Industry and Commercial Development Department of Los Angeles for entrepreneurial classes for fewer than 24 sidewalk vendors. A little more than two weeks later, there was the Los Angeles County Health Services Department, conducting a raid against many of those same vendor/students. Health officials confiscated equipment from the same Panorama City building used by Mission College for its classes. There’s more:

Robert Valdez, street vending administrator for the city Department of Public Works, was out in the same Panorama City area this month. He was there to give a presentation on an ordinance before the City Council that would legalize vending in special zones around the city. Suddenly, much of his audience was scurrying away from the presentation. Seems the county health inspectors were back at that very instant, in the same building, on yet another raid.

Part of that ordinance, by the way, was to have shifted responsibility for enforcing vending laws from the LAPD to civilian inspectors. You remember the LAPD, the undermanned, overworked, underpaid force--the same department with marching orders from the mayor and police chief to figure out ways to free up more officers for regular patrol duties? Well, they were happy about the idea of having one less thing to worry about, like vendors, right?

Well, no. Seems the city inspectors who would have taken up some enforcement duties would have to be granted limited police officer status. One LAPD commander called that possibility “a nightmare.”

Our own view is that the street vending law before the City Council ought to be approved, as long as it considers such matters as the type of businesses that exist in the areas where vendors might locate. It would not be fair, for example, to place a hot dog stand in front of a restaurant.

Already, the measure that has been approved by a City Council committee and has been sent on to the full council has been amended. Now, 20% of the property owners in a given area must agree in a vote to allow sidewalk vending. The original percentage, 10%, was far too low.

The full council is expected to vote on the ordinance in the next three weeks. Perhaps that will give the county Health Department, the LAPD, and City Hall time to stop wasting energy and resources in canceling out their respective efforts.