Boyle Heights street vendors get hit with police crackdown
Posted by Cyrus Farivar on November 20, 2009
Despite the fact that East LA finally got a light rail line this week, the Los Angeles Times is also reporting on the crackdown on Boyle Height’s illegal street vendors.
The impromptu — and illegal — nighttime food market drew the attention of Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar more than a year ago after neighbors complained about noise, trash, and crowded sidewalks slick with cooking oil. As the economy soured, nearby businesses selling similar foods also asked the police for help addressing unlicensed vending. Working with Huizar’s staff, L.A. County health inspectors and the Los Angeles Police Department began enforcing state food safety laws and the city’s ban on street vending, targeting vendors cooking over open flames.
But the crackdown intensified in recent weeks after the city’s grand opening of the revamped Hollenbeck police station and as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority prepared to welcome Angelenos from across the city to the Eastside with the Gold Line extension. Frequent visits by police have now scattered the Breed Street vendors, some of whom have been selling there for more than a decade, to quieter, less-profitable corners of Boyle Heights. Several now are putting out word of their new locations on Twitter to a committed following of foodies.
Other fun facts about this case:
Around the same time [in 2006], Councilman Tony Cardenas grew frustrated with the city’s reliance on overworked L.A. County health inspectors to confiscate food and equipment. After his office fielded calls from parents who said their children had been sickened after eating from illegal carts near schools, he asked city lawyers to explore creating a division of city inspectors who could confiscate illegal food and carts without county inspectors present. Cardenas said he was told it was not feasible. Last fiscal year, the city’s street investigators charged 178 people with street vending violations.
“With 10 million people in the county, and 4 million people in the city, it’s hard for us to be able to attack the problem,” said Cardenas, who created a city-county task force within his district that targeted illegal carts. “All we’re able to do is hit hot spots on a temporary basis,” Cardenas said.
Terrance Powell, the county health department’s director of specialized surveillance and enforcement, said 17 of his inspectors oversee the 15,710 licensed mobile food facilities across the county that range from catering trucks to push carts selling ice cream.
Another team of 10 is devoted to confiscating food and cooking equipment from illegal street vendors, which number at least 15,000 across L.A. County. Last fiscal year, that team conducted 2,300 inspections and confiscated more than 39,000 pounds of food.
Huizar’s office asked county inspectors if they could check on Breed Street as often as once a month, but a one-shift sweep costs as much as $4,000.
Vendors and local officials are trying to work out a deal where the vendors could operate “hot food farmers market on weekend nights near their old location,” to open by early next year.
