Santa Ana Urges State to Allow More Local Control Over Street Vending Safety Rules

Street vendors sell food items in Santa Ana, Calif., on July 18, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Officials in Santa Ana, California, are urging the state government to allow more local control over street vending regulations, saying vendors violating safety rules are crowding the city’s sidewalks and posing health risks to residents.

During a March 7 meeting, Santa Ana’s city council voted 5–2 to approve a resolution urging state legislators to amend two state laws: one decriminalized street vending in 2019 and the other made it easier for vendors to obtain health permits starting this year.

Since the legislation took effect, both city and county law enforcement agencies have encountered “a rise in negligent stationary sidewalk food vending operations, including the sale of food deemed unfit for human consumption, the presence of unventilated smoke and open flame ... [and] the obstruction of adequate sidewalk space for accessibility and safety purposes,” city officials said in the resolution.

Additionally, some street vendors continue to operate without first obtaining a permit, according to the resolution. The city already shut down more than 100 street vendors without permits and  “selling food unfit for human consumption in December, according to city officials.

City leaders asked state lawmakers to amend both laws to allow local governments to set their own requirements to maintain sanitary conditions for street vending and to ensure that vendors don’t undermine disability access as protected by the 1990 American Disabilities Act.

Santa Ana street vendor. Courtesy of the City of Santa Ana

During the meeting, Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan said that though local “mom-and-pop” street vendors are an “important part of [the] community,” some vendors travel from outside the city and disregard food and safety protocols.

“Food vendors who are run by and owned by large corporations from outside of the city of Santa Ana, … who flout the regulations … and do not care what happens to our water systems, our trash, or the safety of our residents, those are the people we are trying to prevent from working here,” Phan said.

Councilmen Benjamin Vazquez and Jonathan Hernandez, who cast the two dissenting votes, attempted to add amendments to the resolution.

Vazquez said he would support the resolution if it included a commitment to work with the county to educate street vendors on the permit process, and made them one of the city’s protected groups. Hernandez requested for classifying attacks on street vendors as a hate crime—a resolution he unsuccessfully proposed last July.

“In theory, this resolution is accomplishing a lot of what our residents are asking for,” Hernandez said. “But what I don’t want is for this resolution to then be weaponized and to turn against food trucks.”