Long Beach has seized food or equipment from unpermitted street vendors more than a dozen times since late March, marking a shift in its strategy that, until early this year, focused on helping vendors comply with the city’s new licensing process.
Seizures began in January and have continued at an increasing pace. In total, enforcement staff have discarded vendors’ food and impounded equipment 21 times this year, according to a 50-page report Deputy City Manager Grace Yoon presented at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. The city did not provide data on where the seizures took place.
Enforcement is prioritized based on complaints about unlicensed street vending, hundreds of which have been submitted via email, phone call or the Go Long Beach app, according to Yoon.
The crackdown comes nearly 16 months after Long Beach created a process for local street vendors to receive business licenses and health permits to operate legally. Until recently, city staff has focused on educating vendors about the new rules. They’ve also offered to waive fees and even given out a limited number of free carts to qualified applicants.
Sidewalk vendors, however, told the City Council Tuesday that they’ve tried to navigate the path to legitimacy and found it to be anything but easy, with complicated regulations and unexpected costs that upend their business model.
“None of us want to be out of compliance if we could be in compliance,” said a food vendor who identified herself only as Zainab.
From late February 2024 through early May, 261 prospective food or merchandise vendors applied for a city-approved business license to sell on the sidewalk.
Less than 13% have been approved: eight to sell food and 25 to sell nonperishable merchandise.
Nearly half of the approved food vendors needed outside help navigating the process, according to Itzel Perez of Centro CHA, who told the City Council that her nonprofit helped three of them.
Financial barriers have also been a hurdle.
Over 100 vendors who previously got health permits to serve at temporary events have had trouble getting approved for a food cart because of the more burdensome costs involved, according to a member of the advocacy group Vendor Justice Committee, who identified herself only as Angelica.
“When you really look at the numbers” to operate a food cart, the city’s current offer to cover business license and health permit fees for the first year of business is “simply not enough,” she told the City Council.
One vendor who regularly receives a permit to sell food at events would need $20,000 to convert his operation to serve from a cart rather than a pop-up grill, Angelica said. Another vendor got approved for a free cart from the city but can’t afford the cost to store it at a city-approved commissary, she said.
Soon, the city plans to offer grants of up to $3,000 for vendors nearing approval for a free cart and up to $8,000 for vendors getting approval for a health permit, according to Yoon.
Those grants are meant to bridge a funding gap that’s held up some applicants, she said, like one who had completed all the steps for a free cart but couldn’t afford to purchase a trailer to haul the cart around the city.
Since the giveaway program launched in late August, five vendors have received a free cart from the city. That group includes one selling baked goods and one serving hot dogs and pastrami sandwiches.
As of May 2, 73 applicants had applied for a free cart, Yoon said.
District 8 Councilmember Tunua Trash-Ntuk said more education is needed to iron out gaps in the program.
Residents have contacted her office, confused about which free cart to apply for to sell corn, more commonly known as “elote,” Trash-Ntuk said.
According to Long Beach’s Environmental Health Bureau Director Judeth Luong, that type of cart isn’t one of the four currently offered by the city, but grants could cover part of the cost for those vendors who need a custom-designed cart.
Other City Council members called for more enforcement.
There have been seven enforcement operations since January, but those “aren’t enough to hold people accountable,” said District 3 Councilmember Kristina Duggan.
She said one problem vendor has spilled grease multiple times at the same location on Second Street near Nieto Avenue in Belmont Shore, resulting in an unsightly sidewalk even after city crews attempted to power wash it.
Managing expectations from restaurant owners, residents and sidewalk vendors has been a delicate balancing act for the city.
Enforcement issues include some unauthorized vendors restocking and returning the same day that their food was seized, Yoon said. There’s also been pushback from customers trying to buy from the vendor who has had their equipment impounded.
“Some stakeholders feel the city is doing too much, while others believe we’re not doing enough,” Yoon said.