Firms Oppose Street Vending Proposal

An association of Valley businesses has voiced its opposition to a proposed street vending ordinance that is scheduled to be considered by the Los Angeles City Council today.

Under the proposed ordinance, the city would identify and establish as many as eight “vending districts” where street vending is legal. Vendors would be required to acquire a health permit, buy a city-approved pushcart and pay a permit fee of up to $600.

The United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, which represents 21 chambers in the Valley and about 7,600 merchants, issued a position paper Tuesday opposing the city’s vending district concept as “inequitable, unworkable and unenforceable.”

“Right now, the small businesses don’t have any way to protect themselves,” said United Chambers of Commerce President Bob Scott. “We don’t feel that what the city has proposed with the ordinance has gone far enough to protect existing businesses.”

In its position paper, the United Chambers said the ordinance will not work fairly without stronger safeguards. This includes forcing vendors to keep a set distance from existing businesses and not allowing them to “set up shop” outside a single location.

But Madeline Janis-Aparicio, attorney for the 500-member Street Vendors Assn. that supports the ordinance, said that businesses are trying “to have their cake and eat it too. They don’t want mobile vendors, but they don’t want stationary vendors, either.”

The United Chambers also expressed a desire for a community-funded reserve police force to deal with the issue of enforcing the street vendor ordinance.