MacArthur Park OKd as Special Vending District

Lofting a pole sparkling with sticky red candy apples selling for $1 each, Manuel Salgado gazed at the soiled napkins crumpled on the sidewalk and the scraggly bits of food scattered by the curb, and admitted responsibility for the mess along Alvarado Street.

Not total responsibility, to be sure--one sad-faced vendor could scarcely shoulder the blame for the run-down blocks surrounding MacArthur Park. Still, Salgado acknowledged that peddlers hawking everything from fried chiles to chintzy watches to his very own candy apples had brought down the neighborhood a bit. “They’re dirty because of the vendors,” he said, pointing to the grease-smudged sidewalks.

Those vendors will soon be gone--pushed out by a community plan to clean up the hustle- bustle around MacArthur Park.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to set up a special vending district along Alvarado and 7th streets, where licensed pushcart owners will be able to sell food, flowers and crafts from tasteful carts regulated by health inspectors. Entrepreneurs willing to spend up to $5,000 for the cart, insurance, permits and a uniform can troll for customers from a designated slot.

Everyone else will be booted out of the neighborhood.

That means Jose Pajucafuentes will no longer be able to sell refried beans and homemade tortillas from his shopping cart. Jose Lopez Matillas will not be allowed to push cheap telephones on a street corner. And the 35-year-old vendor selling “talking” alarm clocks for $8 apiece will have to find another bus stop to camp near.

“The whole idea is to make [vending] attractive and organized, not like it is now, where someone throws down an orange crate, opens an umbrella over it, and sells whatever they want to sell,” said Gene Baur, general manager of the Park Plaza Hotel overlooking the soaring fountain of MacArthur Park.

The vendor ordinance approved Wednesday is designed as a test of whether the city can strike a balance between encouraging lively street-mall informality and maintaining clean, safe streets. The council agreed two years ago to legalize sidewalk sales in certain districts, and a citizen’s committee has been working nearly that long to establish the rules for MacArthur Park.

“We’re going to change the image we have of street vendors,” Councilman Mike Hernandez vowed.

In Hernandez’s vision, 40 to 50 entrepreneurs will set up spiffy new carts bursting with ethnic foods and handmade crafts. Musicians will keep shoppers humming. Hernandez predicted that the international marketplace, dubbed the Paseo (Pedestrian Area for Sales and Entrepreneurial Opportunities), eventually will draw tourists to the MacArthur district.

Even before the Paseo gets into gear around the first of the year, Rampart Division police have promised to crack down on unlicensed vendors, like a soft-spoken woman from El Salvador who spent Wednesday afternoon enticing passersby with fresh-cut mangoes and tangy limes near a bustling bus stop. The woman, who did not give her name, said she would willingly pay for a permit. “It’s a sacrifice,” she said, “but I can do it if they’ll leave me alone.”

But the new Paseo will have no room for a fruit vendor.

Organizers hope to emphasize crafts, rather than food, and they will insist that all edibles come from approved wholesalers--not from private kitchens. Even vendors such as Primitivo Castro, who proudly points to his license to sell neon-colored Popsicles from a pushcart, will have to move out if their products are deemed unacceptable.

To nudge vendors toward more upscale products, the city has sent several dozen to business classes, where they learn about marketing, accounting and inventory control. The council will also provide loans of up to $5,000 to help entrepreneurs buy carts and products.

But several immigrants who patch together $20 to $50 a day doling out tortillas or wallets rejected the concept of the Paseo. They did not like the idea of selling a single product at a single location--especially a location that would charge them rent.

“Where are you going to find $5,000 for permission?” Salgado asked, as a burly customer swaggered up and demanded a new candy apple to replace one that had split in half. “What are we going to eat? How are we going to pay the rent if we can’t work here?”

Down the street at Langer’s Deli, famous for its juicy pastrami, owner Norm Langer said he would be glad to see the last of the mobile taco stands and roving watch salesmen. He has to steam-clean the sidewalks outside his restaurant twice a week to sop up grease from illicit food sales. “It’s a cleanliness problem,” Langer complained.

If the Paseo works--and he declares himself optimistic--Langer predicts it will be a model “not just for the city, but for the whole country.”