ANAHEIM : City Backs Off Street Vendor Parking Law

Acting on legal advice, city officials have backed away from a measure that would have put more pressure on street vendors to comply with parking regulations.

Under current law, which remains unchanged, parking tickets are issued when street vendors linger too long in certain locations or park in restricted areas. But according to Code Enforcement Manager John W. Poole, the tickets are not much of a deterrent.

“This isn’t working,” Poole said, because registered owners of the vending trucks, not the drivers, are responsible for paying the tickets. As a result, he said, some drivers show a “total disregard” for parking restrictions.

To put “a bit more teeth” into the law, Anaheim officials wanted to begin citing the drivers themselves. The city discovered, however, that this would conflict with state law, so the matter was withdrawn this week from the City Council agenda.

This leaves the city with a situation, Poole said, in which “it’s really going to be up to the owners to control their drivers.”

Street vending is an ongoing source of tension in Anaheim. Vendors claim they have a right to sell produce and other items from their vans and trucks, while some residents complain that this form of commerce results in noise, loitering and litter.

The city has had a moratorium in effect since September, 1994, on new permits for street vendors. The moratorium has been extended through December to allow the city time to revise its vendor laws.

Poole said he hopes to bring the new regulations before the council this fall.