Mort Diamond : Hot Dog Vendor Turned Candidate Takes Aim at City Hall

Mort Diamond is perhaps best known as the Canoga Park hot dog vendor who took on Big Government. Diamond’s crusade to change laws governing hot dog carts earned him some public notoriety in the late 1980s, which inspired him to run for the 3rd District seat on the Los Angeles City Council. But Diamond was defeated handily by Joy Picus in 1989 and Laura Chick, the incumbent and his current opponent, in 1993.

Born in Newark, N.J., Diamond moved to California at 13. He has worked as a businessman and freelance paralegal, but insists, with his usual streetwise humor, that his most important education has come from “the school of hard knocks.”

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Question: You list yourself as a small-business advocate on the ballot. If elected, what will you do to help small businesses?

Answer: One thing I would do is to give them a fair tax break. And I certainly would not pass ordinances that would be enforced by punitive measures. This is where the incumbent and I are different.

A good example is the sign issue on Sherman Way. As soon as they started the groundbreaking on the new Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park, business people were warned [by the local Chamber of Commerce and Building and Safety Department] that they would have to take their [overly large or illegally placed] signs down or they could be fined $1,000 or thrown in jail--this is Laura Chick [supporting] a futile attempt to beautify the area.

Some of these people have had their signs up for a very long time, and we must do everything possible to support these small-business people. They provide jobs and the main thing is always jobs, jobs, jobs. So, we should have a grandfather clause so they can keep their signs.

Q: What do you feel are the most pressing concerns of your district?

A: I sat in front of a grocery store getting signatures [to be placed on the ballot] and the one thing people kept talking about is how sick they are of going to the polls and voting for propositions, which then go straight to the courts.

People are very upset with the City Council and the poor representation they are getting. People are also very worried about being fined if they are not home and their gardener uses a leaf blower.

And then there’s the subway. They are about to write off the subway in the Valley. I sat on Laura Chick’s neighborhood planning advisory committee, and it was a consensus of the people that they wanted a monorail system down the middle of the freeway. But Laura Chick supported the subway under Burbank Boulevard instead. It just shows that advisory groups are only as strong as the councilperson.

Q: Do you think the Valley should secede from Los Angeles?

A: The people of the Valley make up 40% of the population of Los Angeles. But we have just 20% of the representation on City Council. The council has further diluted the Valley’s political representation by gerrymandering council districts, as well as diluting the Valley representation on the Board of Education.

The Valley should also have more coverage by the Los Angeles Police Department--we have the thinnest coverage of the LAPD in the city.

Q: What about city charter reform?

A: It’s a smoke screen. When did the charter amendment come about? It started when [ex-Assemblywoman Paula] Boland presented her bill on Valley self-determination. Why wasn’t city charter reform an issue before the Boland bill?

Q: What do you feel you could do as a councilperson that Laura Chick could not?

A: The one thing I would do is represent the Valley. I would hesitate to vote for things like the new sports arena. . . . I would look at the rebuilding of the L.A. Coliseum. We just put a lot of money into it for the Olympics. I can’t see the point of putting more Valley money into it.

I would also get a Hoover commission to check out all of the city’s departments to find where we could cut down on the fat and see where money is being spent foolishly.

Q: What did your experiences running the hot dog cart teach you?

A: I deal with a lot of real people. I saw stuff on the street. When I started getting my name in the paper, I had no idea that one day I would run for City Council. But I started working on different bills and made a difference. And, if I did this as a hot dog vendor, just imagine what I could do if I got in office.