Countywide : Bill Would Let Cities Ban Street Vending

An Orange County legislator has introduced a bill that would allow cities to ban street vending and would negate an appeals court decision that voided an Anaheim ban.

The bill, introduced this month by State Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), would change the state vehicle code to say cities “may prohibit vending from a vehicle upon a street.”

The 4th District Court of Appeal last year nullified a 1992 Anaheim ordinance that prohibited street vending in residential neighborhoods. The court said the vehicle code allows cities to regulate street vending but not to ban it.

“The senator sees this as an issue of local control,” Joe Yocca, Hurtt’s chief legislative aide, said Tuesday. “Local governments should have the right to ban or not ban the sales activity on their streets as they see fit.”

Yocca said the senator is confident the bill will be passed this year, perhaps by summer.

Javier Barajas, an Anaheim vendor and president of the Southern California Street Vendors Assn., said Tuesday that he was unaware of Hurtt’s bill. But he called it an example of racism against Latinos.

“This is news to me. I didn’t know about it. If they don’t let us work with dignity, with licenses and legally, than what do they want us to do?” Barajas said.

The city’s approximately 150 licensed vendors, who are almost exclusively Latino, sell a wide variety of products, including produce, groceries, cigarettes, clothing and furniture, from the back of parked trucks and vans.

“This is a land of immigrants where opportunity is for everyone, not just Anglos,” he said. “I’m not afraid to defend my children and my brothers. We are good people and I will keep fighting (against such bans) until I die.”

The vendors’ opponents--who are mostly white with some Latinos and Asians--deny that race has anything to do with their stand. They accuse the vendors of parking for hours in front of homes and stores. They say the vendors bring litter, noise and traffic congestion to their neighborhoods.

Anaheim City Atty. Jack L. White said the ordinance banning residential street vending has been stricken from the city’s code books and could not be implemented unless it is readopted by the City Council.

The council recently superseded the ordinance by adopting one that allows vending but requires that trucks be moved at least 100 feet every 10 minutes, White said.