PERSPECTIVE ON STREET ENTREPRENEURS : A Spiteful Shot at Curbside Vendors : One city’s setback in court inspires a bill that, statewide, puts even the beloved ice-cream truck at risk.

Many a child growing up in California, after a tiring afternoon of study or play, has perked up to the jingling sound of an approaching ice-cream truck. And many a parent of those children has welcomed the mobile lunch wagon’s arrival at break time on the job. Soon, however, these cultural icons may exist only in Californians’ memory. The ice-cream truck and lunch wagon may be the next victims of our state Legislature’s penchant for immigrant-bashing. On Tuesday, the state Senate Transportation Committee will consider legislation that would invite cities and counties to enact ordinances outlawing street vending. State law already allows local authorities to regulate street vending for public-safety reasons. What inspired the new legislation by Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove)? Could it have something to do with a recent state Court of Appeal decision that overturned an attempt by the city of Anaheim to drive certain produce vendors, most of them immigrants, from its streets? Hurtt’s bill would give Anaheim another chance to abolish street vending for reasons wholly unrelated to safety concerns.

The price that all Californians could pay for this bow to local intolerance is, as for most immigrant-bashing measures, exceedingly high. In this case, those costs include the elimination of jobs, the deterioration of the business base and the erosion of our state’s constitutionally guaranteed right to work. All in all, a serious threat to free enterprise simply to appease a city government bent on punishing sellers of fruits and vegetables.

It is now widely acknowledged that small business has been and will continue to be the engine that drives the American economy. Small business creates jobs and fosters innovation. In the past 10 years, many more jobs have been created in California by businesses with fewer than 20 employees than in all enterprises of greater size combined.

Street vending is a quintessential and long-established form of small business. Banning it would close an important avenue of economic advancement for many of our state’s residents, creating greater unemployment and further eroding our state’s precious small-business base. In difficult economic times, our Legislature should be working to foster small-business development, not to eliminate it.

The Hurtt bill defies plain old-fashioned economic wisdom. There is a thriving market for street vendors’ wares: Some people prefer them to what’s sold in stores; others can’t easily get to the stores at all. Why shut a market that profits both seller and consumer?

It is important to emphasize that the Hurtt bill is not necessary to address any concerns about litter, traffic congestion or excessive noise. Current state law specifically allows regulations to address problems like these. Is this just another example of officious government failing to leave well enough alone?

Sadly, the answer is no. Something more is at work here. In the case of the Anaheim street-vending ban, the Court of Appeal concluded that the “city had its sights on produce vendors,” even though its ordinance would have affected all street vendors. The produce vendors are almost all Latino immigrants, a status that undoubtedly played a role in the city’s attempt to oust them from its streets. The Hurtt bill, like the Anaheim ban it would salvage, falls in the growing category of legislation scapegoating immigrants for the perceived ills of our society.

What mischief to our economy, all for the sake of targeting immigrants! Even the most ardent immigration restrictionist could not seriously argue that legal immigrants operating entrepreneurial businesses are somehow a threat. Yet our Legislature is considering a bill that would threaten innumerable small businesses all across the state simply so that Anaheim can exclude certain entrepreneurs it considers undesirable. There is no valid reason for such an unwarranted attack on this vital economic force.

Whether it is a law targeting street vendors in Anaheim or an ordinance banning certain day-laborers in Los Angeles County, we must be ever-vigilant to the danger that society’s increasing tolerance for laws punishing immigrants will harm our entire community. Let the ice-cream trucks and lunch wagons--and the produce vans--continue to roll.