Judge Invalidates City’s Regulations on Food Vendors

Concluding that “the entire ordinance must fall,” a Superior Court judge has invalidated a city law regulating food trucks in a ruling that could affect vendors throughout the county.

Judge Ronald L. Bauer held that state law already addresses the issues covered in Santa Ana’s ordinance, including the amount of time vending trucks can stop to sell food and insurance requirements on vendors.

“This is great news for us,” Javier Barajas, president of the Street Vendors Assn. of Orange County, said Thursday. “Now we can work in peace.”

The city ordinance had been attacked by some as racist because virtually all of the vendors and their clients are Latino, and critics said the law seemed bent on putting vendors out of business.

Amin David, president of the Latino advocacy group Los Amigos of Orange County, applauded the ruling, which was filed Tuesday and received by attorneys Thursday.

“The concerns that may be legitimate, such as controlling trash, that can be regulated,” David said, “but you don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater.”

The ordinance, passed by the City Council in 1994, prohibited vendors from remaining at any location longer than 30 minutes, parking within 500 feet of schools, parks, recreation areas and other vending vehicles, and within 200 feet of intersections.

The law also required vendors to have $1-million insurance policies and included licensing and safety provisions. Violations, considered misdemeanors, were punishable by up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

City officials had maintained the ordinance was needed to improve traffic safety and ensure fair competition among city businesses.

“They’re like little grocery stores in the street,” Assistant City Atty. Bob Wheeler said Thursday of the trucks. “They never leave.”

Wheeler praised Bauer’s decision as “well-written,” and expects the city to decide by next week whether to appeal.

Earlier this month, the Fullerton City Council passed a similar ordinance requiring vending trucks such as produce vehicles to move 200 feet every 15 minutes.

Santa Ana attorney Sal Sarmiento, who fought a vending ordinance in Anaheim, noted that the judge’s action is timely given that Fullerton vendors are already expressing distaste with the city’s new law.

“If I was Fullerton,” Sarmiento said, “I’d really look at what’s happening because the vendors are starting to complain.”

Anaheim and San Juan Capistrano have similar ordinances.