Issue: Street Vendors

Should the City Council approve a compromise that would legalize street vending in designated zones? Under the agreement, street vendors would be required to buy specially designed carts and obey all applicable health and safety regulations.

* Pedro Hernandez, city sanitation worker , Los Angeles This will create more crime and problems in the neighborhood because the ones who are legal will fight with the ones who aren’t. If you have people to enforce the (new) law, maybe it will work, but I don’t think (the city) has the resources to control these people. The police have a lot of crime to cover in this area. I don’t think they can get involved with the vendors. Before approving vending, the council should make sure they have the resources to enforce the law. (Creating special zones) will also create discrimination. These special districts won’t be everywhere. They don’t want to have vendors in Pacific Palisades or Beverly Hills; they will have them in the poor areas. Vendors don’t respect the old people, the business people or the community. This neighborhood on any Sunday night looks like the city dump from the trash and the grease vendors leave on the sidewalk. On this street, you have old ladies who can’t cross the street because of the carts. (Some vendors) are cooking with propane gas on the sidewalk. What if it explodes? It will kill a bunch of people.

* Angelica Garza, CARECEN organizer for Street Vendors Assn., Koreatown Los Angeles is the only major city in the U.S. where sidewalk entrepreneurs are branded and treated as criminals. Street vending is a matter of business, not criminal regulation. The Street Vendors Assn. has worked for over five years to legalize street vending, and its members are ready to purchase all necessary permits and comply with all city regulations. We are waiting for the city to approve the proposed ordinance which, as the recent compromise between vendors and the business community shows, was created with input from all interested parties and will take their needs into account.

* Lovelta Higgins, bank teller , South-Central As long as they have to obey the rules, the health codes and pay taxes, I would agree with allowing vendors. I don’t really have vendors in my neighborhood, but several blocks down, we see people selling various things. Some of them are a problem because in some areas there so many, and they’re hounding you to buy things and you really don’t want to be bothered. With those that sell food, you aren’t really sure how clean they are and how safe. It would be good to be able to monitor them with health laws. If they have special zones for them so they’re not all over everywhere, it sounds great.

* Helen Jordan, retired teacher , Arlington Heights I don’t like it, to tell you the truth. Vendors would cause more confusion in the streets, more traffic. I would still be quite concerned about the health part, but if they adhere to all the health laws, I don’t really have a comeback to that. I shouldn’t object, because I had a brother who had a catering truck. But he wasn’t up and down the street--he went and stayed in a certain area. He wouldn’t allow people to leave a lot of trash around. Every once in a while, I see someone selling ice cream pushing one of those little carts. I don’t like that. I think that’s a little funny. I guess people have to make a living and I shouldn’t be selfish. I guess it’s OK. Give everybody a chance to make a living somehow.