Vendors to Defy Anaheim Ordinance, Attorney Says : Law: The ban on residential selling took effect Friday. Officials have been warning violators but won’t begin issuing citations until the end of next week.

ANAHEIM —  City authorities began cracking down on street vendors Tuesday and ordering them to move their trucks off residential streets. But their attorney said many will defy the orders.

Officials issued more than 20 warnings Tuesday and will continue through next week, when they will begin issuing citations and forcing the vendors to move or cease selling.

“We don’t want to go in and just slam-dunk these people,” said Richard D. La Rochelle, an Anaheim code enforcement supervisor. “We want to give them every chance to comply.”

Salvador Sarmiento, a Santa Ana attorney who represents 18 vendors, said he is “upset” with the crackdown.

“We were led to believe that they were not going to enforce the ordinance for another two weeks,” he said. He contended that many of the vendors would continue to operate in residential neighborhoods in defiance of the ordinance rather than move to commercial zones, where they would go broke, he said.

“These people have a lot of money invested in their operations,” Sarmiento said. “They have no choice” but to defy the ordinance.

A split City Council, after weeks of intense and acrimonious debate, last month passed by a 3-2 vote an ordinance banning the city’s 153 licensed vendors and the dozens of unlicensed vendors from residential neighborhoods.

The ordinance took effect Friday after the vendors failed to get a judge to issue a preliminary injunction against the ordinance. A hearing on a request for a temporary restraining order is scheduled for Oct. 16.

The vendors, who are almost exclusively Latino, sell a variety of products, including produce, groceries, cigarettes, clothes and furniture from the back of trucks parked primarily in downtown and Disneyland-area neighborhoods.

Those who oppose street vending in residential neighborhoods say it leads to dirty, noisy and congested streets. They have said some vendors routinely discard trash on front lawns and streets and park for hours in front of homes while sounding air horns to attract attention.

Martin Zamora, one of five vendors La Rochelle warned during a one-hour sweep through downtown and the Jeffrey-Lynne area Tuesday afternoon, said the banning of street vendors was not fair because their business licenses don’t expire until Jan. 1.

“Why can’t we sell?” Zamora said through an interpreter. “Why can’t we sell until ‘93?”

Mike Kowalski, a spokesman for Neighborhoods Opposed to street Vendors in Anaheim (NOVA) said his members are “pleased that the city is cracking down.”

“But we agree with the issuing of warnings for right now because we don’t want the city to be heavy-handed,” he said. He denied that forcing the vendors to commercial areas will drive them out of business, saying his group was able to find commercial areas within 200 yards of the residential neighborhoods where they are now selling.

The vendors have said that they are small-time entrepreneurs who are just trying to make a living. The licensed vendors claim that most of the problems attributed to them are caused by unlicensed vendors. Some attribute the complaints to racism.

But NOVA members heatedly deny that race plays a part in their group’s complaints, saying that they are simply opposed to retail activity taking place in residential neighborhoods.