Posted on 02/12/2024
ONE BIG THING: ELIMINATING LA’S “NO-VENDING ZONES”
What Happened?
On Tuesday, City Council voted to eliminate the seven broad “No-Street-Vending Zones” across the city. The ordinance approved by City Council on Tuesday leaves in place existing safety regulations around street vending, but eliminates the blanket bans on street vending in parts of the city.
When SB 946 decriminalized street vending across California in 2018, LA City Council established the following zones where vending would still be completely prohibited:
- Hollywood Walk of Fame
- Hollywood Bowl
- Dodger Stadium
- LA LIVE/Crypto.com Arena
- Universal Studios/Citywalk
- El Pueblo De Los Angeles Historical Monument
- Exposition Park
Now that this ordinance was passed by council on Tuesday, vending will once again be legalized in these high-opportunity areas.
Why it Matters
Vendors say that since these zones were first established in 2018, they have been used to target and harass hard working immigrant entrepreneurs with arbitrary enforcement.
Street vendors contribute so much to the cultural fabric of LA. After decades of harassment and neglect, we are saying that we see you, we value you, and we are ready to collaborate with you to build a more just system in the City of Los Angeles.
As the son of street vendors, I remember taking my parents to the meetings back in 2012 to advocate against these No-Vending Zones. Now after so much organizing from vendor organizations like Community Power Collective and Inclusive Action for the City, it was an emotional experience to be able to take this vote and bring these hardworking entrepreneurs out of the shadows and into the formal economy.
Two More Quick Hits
1. Making Street Vending Permits More Accessible
In another massive win for street vendors, City Council voted this week to lower permitting fees for vendors from $541 to $27.
After a report found that only a few vendors in the city could even afford this burdensome $500+ permit, the amazing Councilmember Nithya Raman led this successful effort to make permits more accessible.
With this vote, plus the elimination of No-Vending Zones, we are sending a strong message that we stand with street vendors in the City of LA.
2. Looking into Solar-Powered Street Lights
This week, we took action to ask the Bureau of Street Lighting to report to council about the status of implementing more solar-powered street lights and what benefits that could provide.
In addition to being more climate-friendly, solar-powered lights are less vulnerable to copper-wire theft, which is currently the primary cause of street light outages. So as neighborhoods across the city have been forced to deal with street light outages for months, we’re looking at multiple innovative ways to solve this problem.