Inadequate Pushcart Solution

For years, Santa Ana has considered what to do with pushcart vendors plying their wares to shoppers downtown and around the Civic Center. The answer it has come up with is to push them somewhere else. The city has given cart operators until Jan. 1 to apply for permits to continue their businesses elsewhere or to find a new line of work. Santa Ana deserves credit for giving those who will be displaced ample notice. But many people will miss the carts when they are gone.

One group that won’t miss the sidewalk vendors is downtown merchants. They have complained that the carts steal their business. But most of the carts offer eat-on-the-run food, from hot dogs to Mexican pastries to shaved ice, not the sort of offerings found in nearby stores. Restaurants aren’t likely to get the customers who patronize the carts.

A more serious complaint, one with merit, is that the carts’ customers often carelessly toss their wrappers or unfinished meals on the sidewalk and street. That becomes a health problem. Some vendors have contended that it was not their fault but their customers’. Nevertheless, they should have taken it on themselves to be sure the area around their food stands was swept; it’s basic sanitation and would have eliminated one complaint about the carts’ presence.

Other cities in Orange County, including San Juan Capistrano, Fullerton and Anaheim, also have wrestled with how to regulate the carts. Vendors often are recent immigrants to the United States and rent the carts, receiving a small weekly salary. The work gives them a start in their new country, and their work ethic deserves applause.

The carts around the Civic Center have appealed to workers in surrounding government buildings and jurors too pressed for time to dine in a restaurant. The carts along 4th Street have helped increase the Mexican ambience of downtown Santa Ana and have lured numerous Mexican Americans homesick for their native land. In Mexico City, too, pushcart vendors periodically clash with city officials.

Honest vendors deserve to make a living, and downtown business owners deserve to be able to offer unimpeded customer access to their stores. Santa Ana needs to ensure that its solution helps both groups.