SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Santa Monica code enforcement officer Jorge Arellano spends his days making sure businesses and people are following the rules.
“All of these carts, these fruit carts, they should have a visible sticker with a V, which should be here, and it’s right in the front. For example, this one has a business license number, and it tells you when it expires,” he said.
Arellano used to do the work mostly alone, but the COVID-19 shutdowns forced many people to start vending.
“During the pandemic, the situation got worse. There were more vendors out in the pier, more vendors out in the sand. As we tried to approach them, we were getting negative feedback, aggressive behavior from some of the vendors, threats,” he said.
Therefore, the city created a vendor enforcement detail, with police, fire, public works and health department representatives to get vendors into compliance.
“We have a wooden pier. We are trying to preserve that. Some of the issues that we were having was people cooking on top of the pier, dumping the oil on the wood planks, causing damage, including the dumping of the oil that they were cooking with, dumping it in the sand,” Arellano said.
But not all the rules are so easy to understand or follow. Videos online shows the enforcement team dumping a licensed vendor’s food because his fruit was cut on-site but his cart didn’t have a sink. Another vendor’s food was thrown away because he had to have a refrigerator to sell melons and watermelons. The licensed food vendor next to him was given a warning because he wasn’t constantly moving, even though the carts are bulky and can weigh hundreds of pounds.
The street vendors call it harassment, while the city calls it public safety.
At times, the frustrations lead to violence and then to arrests. The Santa Monica Police Department told Spectrum News the only time they arrest vendors is when it escalates to violence.
Some vendors are in compliance. There are 125 active and licensed street vendors in the city of Santa Monica, Alejandro Lopez is one of them. His mother used to sell flowers in Mexico, now he does it along the Third Street Promenade.
“You fill out the application, you pay and a week later I was approved and two weeks later I got my license. You have to carry it with you. For me it was easy. I feel proud and happy that I’m trying to do things better. And I have a license, so I’m at peace,” Lopez said.
But even Lopez said that part of the reason he sells flowers is because it’s so complicated to sell food. At the heart of the problem is that street food vendors have to meet the same requirements that brick and mortar stores have to meet under California’s Retail Food Code.
State Sen. Lena Gonzalez has introduced Senate Bill 972, which would reform the state food code to make it easier for sidewalk vendors to get permits to sell food.
Arellano said Santa Monica is welcoming of vendors. After all, it was one of the first cities in the state to have a permitted vending program.
“Vending is not a crime,” he said. “You can actually come out here and vend. And like I said, we welcome everyone to come vend here in Santa Monica, as long as you have your proper business license, health department clearance and go through the proper procedure.”