Zoning Laws Are Real Laws

For many immigrants to Southern California, a vending cart has been the first step to financial security. But the vendors are often unlicensed and unregulated, and the issue has been a tough one for cities to deal with.

The problems that can surround vending are writ large at one corner in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood. For many years, residents and small business owners have pleaded with the city to enforce zoning laws at a large gathering of indoor and outdoor vendors called El Mercado (“the market”).

What they complain about is the cars of El Mercado customers blocking their driveways. About smelling the rotting trash that piles up in the streets. About live music that blares long into the night from the sites of the Mercado’s beer vendors, whose customers sometimes get drunk and rowdy. About prostitution and drug use at the fringes.

The original idea of El Mercado, back in the mid-1960s, was a good one. It was to be a place in the heart of the Eastside where Mexican crafts and cuisine could be bought and sold. But it was financially troubled from the start. In 1986 a part owner named Pedro Rosado became the sole owner and the Mercado expanded out of its buildings into the parking lot.

Vendors have been cited for various violations by the city’s Building and Safety Department and the county Health Department. Twice, the last time in December, city officials have denied Rosado’s requests for a zoning variance to allow outdoor vending.

Everyone involved in the dispute understands the plight of honest vendors who are trying to make a decent living. But negotiations to move El Mercado’s sellers elsewhere came to naught, and residents and legal business owners of this working-class neighborhood have rights that come first.

Such an ordering of rights has led the Orange County communities of Anaheim and Huntington Beach to tightly restrict vendors and require that they move their locations frequently. Los Angeles has tried to create “vending districts,” but vendors complain that the legal districts don’t have enough foot traffic for them to make a living.

Los Angeles County, saying the city has moved too slowly on the El Mercado issue, has announced its intention to file suit to force compliance with the law. But it’s silly to spend taxpayer money on an intergovernmental lawsuit.

The outdoor stalls of El Mercado are illegal and a hazard. The city should move now to enforce every zoning, health and noise regulation. Vendors should be removed and the parking lot restored to its original function. The exceedingly patient residents of Boyle Heights deserve to recover their neighborhood.