KTLA

Los Angeles street vendors no longer banned from selling near popular tourist locations

Vivian Chow

Street vendors in Los Angeles can now operate at some of the city’s most popular tourist spots after council members voted Tuesday to remove a ban on “no street vending zones.”

In a unanimous 15-0 vote, L.A. city councilmembers removed the ban on seven zones where street vendors were prohibited from working:

“As the son of street vendors, I’ve seen how hard these folks work, and how harassment and ticketing can threaten their ability to provide for their families,” said L.A. councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez. “What we’re saying with this law is that we see you, we value your hard work, and we want to collaborate with you on rules for vending that can work for everyone.”

The ordinance eliminated all blanket bans on street vending in parts of the city, but will still maintain existing health and safety regulations.

A street vendor sell fruits and in the Fashion District in Los Angeles in an undated photo. (Credit: Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Street vendors work outside the California Science Center at Exposition Park in Los Angeles on March 24, 2019. (Austin Pallier/AFP via Getty Images)
Andrew Coronel, center, sells a keychain to Gopal Lalwani, second from left, with Carmine Giordano, at left, both visiting from the East Coast, on Hollywood Boulevard, Nov. 7, 2017. (Credit: Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
A street vendor sells food along Maple Avenue in Los Angeles’ Fashion District in this undated photo. (Credit: Los Angeles Times)
Benjamin Ramirez, left, with his father, Alex Ramirez, right, serving food from their cart during a rally in Hollywood. (Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
A street vendor sells fruit on a street corner on Feb. 16, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
An ice cream vendor pushes a cart on the sidewalk that rings Echo Park Lake in Echo Park. (Credit: Los Angeles Times)
A street vendor sells food in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022. In Sri Lanka, where the tourism-driven economy also has been hammered by political upheavals and shortages, the situation remains dire since COVID-19 hit in early 2020. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)
Street vendor Neftali Lopez serves customers from his food cart in Echo Park in Los Angeles in this undated story. The Huntington Beach City Council approved a permanent permit process for sidewalk vendors, with strict limits. (Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
The El Salvador Corridor in L.A.’s Pico-Union neighborhood, famous for its bustling merchants and street food vendors. (KTLA)
A street vendors sells hot dogs in Los Angeles. (Getty Images)
A woman holds up a sign in support of street vendors in Woodland Hills on Aug. 21, 2022. A rally was held in the same spot where a vendor was attacked by an ax-wielding man (KTLA)
A street vendor sells face masks from a pop up stand on April 15, 2020, in Los Angeles, California. (Rich Fury/Getty Images)
The El Salvador Corridor in L.A.’s Pico-Union neighborhood, famous for its bustling merchants and street food vendors. (KTLA)
Street vendors. Undated photo. (KTLA)
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The vote to eliminate the zones comes amid an ongoing lawsuit filed in December 2022 by Community Power Collective, East Los Angeles Community Corp. and Inclusive Action for the City to overturn the city’s no-vending zones.

The ban, which stemmed from a 2018 ordinance that decriminalized street vending, created new rules and regulations for vendors, including the no-vending zones. Despite lifting the ban, the lawsuit will still move forward, according to the plaintiffs in the case.

With a trial date set for Feb. 15, the suit is seeking resolution for the hundreds of citations issued by the city to street vendors who had operated in the no-vending zones.

“Suddenly, just weeks before trial, the City has finally acknowledged that it has been enforcing illegal regulations over the past five years,” said officials from Inclusive Action for the City, one of the plaintiffs. “However, the City has still not addressed the fact that enforcement of these unlawful regulations has resulted in hundreds of citations and thousands of dollars of fines issued to low-income workers. Shockingly, even as the City acknowledges the unlawful nature of the regulations, the citations continue.”

The suit is calling for the city to rescind all citations issued for vending in prohibited zones and to refund any fines that were paid for those violations. The vendors are also seeking the “full repeal of all exclusionary and arbitrary regulations.”

The new law removing the street vending bans is expected to take effect in about a month, city officials said.