Licenses for Street Vendors

Javier Rodriguez H. (“Not a single Vendor has a License” Nov. 18) may be correct when he asserts that illegal street vendors represent “a socioeconomic phenomenon no different than what is found in Mexico City or any other megalopolis in Latin America.” But let me assert that the last thing Los Angeles needs is to become any more like a Third World city than it already has. Illegal street vendors perpetuate crime in the form of counterfeit audio and video tapes and burden our already teetering public health system by preparing and selling food under unsanitary conditions.

Are we prepared to further tarnish the image of our city by becoming the push-cart vending capital of America? I hope not.

WILLIAM BAUMAN

Van Nuys

* Since when is an economy improved by limiting the number jobs due to licensing and raising the cost of entry for the worker? The quality and number of street vendors in Los Angeles can only be determined by one thing: the customer’s willingness to pay. The city cannot improve one area without being deficient in another area. As large as it is, it simply doesn’t have the resources or the know-how. The city’s plan to “license” people selling oranges and Popsicles and hot foods, makes it apparent that they are far less inventive in their ability to “revitalize” the economy than the people whom they are looking to put out of business.

MARK JORDAN

Riverside