Riverside wants to avoid ‘divide’ between street vendors, brick-and-mortar shop
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Ernesto Cajina passed a taco stand along Riverside’s Chicago Avenue as he left work Thursday, July 22, with his car window down.
“I just drove by and got a whiff, and I said, ‘I got to stop,’” said Cajina, who lives in Jurupa Valley. “It sure smells good.”
So he pulled over and bought three tacos — two with beef and one with chicken — at the temporary stand set up behind the sidewalk beneath portable shelters.
Cajina was hardly the only customer. Dozens of others sampled tacos and the stand’s specialty — a thick layer of sizzling meat and melted cheese spread over a bed of potatoes in an aluminum pan.
Street vendors’ stands and carts are a familiar sight across the Inland Empire. And officials in the region’s largest city are crafting an ordinance to create a more inviting business climate for the roving entrepreneurs.
People wait in line to buy fresh hot tacos at a taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
From left cooks Angel Cabrera and Ruben Jimenez make fresh hot plates to order at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Mario Zavala of Riverside holds a plate of freshly made street tacos and bag full to take home at this taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery as a family eats dinner in the background in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Cook Ruben Jimenez makes a three meat burrito for a waiting customer at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Mario Zavala of Riverside holds a plate of freshly made street tacos from the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
The Gonzalez family enjoys a street taco dinner they bought at the taco strand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Cook Angel Cabrera puts a hand full of cheese on grilled chicken as he prepares food for waiting customers at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Anthony Noriega bites into one of the two tacos he bought at the street tacos stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Maria Gonzalez, left puts salsa on her street tacos as others customers wait for their orders at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Cook Angel Cabrera cuts freshly roasted chicken off the grill to make tacos and burritos at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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“I think it’s about time that we bring them into our formal economy,” Mayor Pro Tem Gaby Plascencia told the Riverside City Council on Tuesday, July 20, according to a meeting videotape.
“They are a part of our community,” she said. “They are here.”
But not everyone likes the idea.
About two dozen people addressed the council on the matter Tuesday, with two-thirds of commenters — many of them street vendors — urging passage of proposed changes. Others, including people representing the Riverside business community, spoke out against the plan and called on city leaders to delay action.
Councilmembers voted 6-1, with Plascencia dissenting, to postpone a decision, for two months. That was upon the suggestion of Councilmember Ronaldo Fierro.
Fierro, who owns a downtown eatery, said many restaurant owners have called him, afraid the proposed rules would enable street vendors to take away some of their business.
“There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of concern,” he said, adding that the city has received more emailed comments against the plan than in favor.
Fierro said there is no community consensus behind the plan. Because of that, he said, “I worry that … we could create a permanent divide between brick-and-mortar vendors and street vendors. And I think it’s incredibly important that those two work together peacefully.”
Councilmember Jim Perry, recently reelected, said more time is needed to strike the appropriate balance and relieve fears of people such as those who run struggling “mom-and-pop restaurants” in his Ward 6.
“They are just struggling to keep their doors open,” Perry said, saying they have yet to bounce back from coronavirus restrictions.
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The rule rewrite was triggered by a state law — Senate Bill SB 946 — that became effective Jan. 1, 2019, decriminalizing sidewalk vending with the goal of expanding economic opportunity for low-income and immigrant communities, a city report stated. The law generally bars restrictions except those that protect health and safety.
Riverside is trying to craft a measure that both protects health and expands opportunity.
The city, among other things, proposed removing the existing mandate to provide a Social Security number when applying for a pedestrian food vendor permit, while still requiring other forms of identification, the report said.
Other provisions would extend from the current 10 minutes to 30 minutes the time a roaming sidewalk vendor could stay in one place in a residential area and eliminate the cart size limit of six feet in length and four feet in width. Another rule would eliminate a ban on sound-making devices used to announce a vendor’s presence, though loudspeakers still wouldn’t be allowed.
The proposal would restrict vendors in the city’s open-space and wilderness parks such as Box Springs Mountain, Mount Rubidoux and Sycamore Canyon. Sidewalk vendors could not operate in bike lanes or passenger loading zones, among other places, and would have to leave a 4-foot walking path around them.
Sala Ponnech, representing the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 3190 Riverside, urged approval “just because the changes are sensible and fair.”
Gabriela Mendez, an organizer for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice and Riverside resident, said her parents are vendors and pay taxes. She sought to dispel fears that the changes would pave the way for vendors to take business away from brick-and-mortar businesses and avoid paying taxes.
“I myself have never left a restaurant because I heard the ice cream man outside, to go buy an ice cream,” Mendez said, according to the meeting videotape.
And yet, vendor Lizette Mendoza said, sidewalk entrepreneurs face, along with the summer heat, “the hate that our local neighbors continue to push on them.”
Restaurant owner Pam Nusser said she was concerned about the plan.
“It’s not because I’m afraid of competition,” Nusser said. “It’s that we have a lot of rules to follow.”
Nusser said she recently noticed a vendor operating at Central and Riverside avenues, selling food without proper refrigeration and without wearing gloves.
“I didn’t buy from him because there was nothing that was clean there,” she said, adding, “You don’t just have to keep hot things hot, you have to keep cold things cold.”
Janice Penner, executive director of the Riverside Downtown Partnership, wrote the city on behalf of downtown merchants. She said food handling regulations need tightening because “many of the sidewalk vendors selling food are doing so without proper attention to food safety.”
Penner wrote that while proposed regulations address parks and residential areas, additional rules are needed for commercial zones such as a prohibition against blocking access to shops.
“Our experience is that sidewalk vendors will often set up near a hospitality establishment after midnight and in a manner that impedes pedestrian traffic and safety,” she wrote.
Over at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue, Mario Zavala, a single dad who lives in Riverside’s Orangecrest neighborhood, stopped by Thursday night because he was tired and didn’t feel like cooking for his family.
Related links
Santa Ana street vendors still face hassles
Sidewalk vending is decriminalized across California
San Bernardino opens up opportunities for street vendors
Riverside must embrace street vendors, they are part of the fabric of our community
JURUPA VALLEY: Council to target street vendors
“There’s nothing that beats this atmosphere,” he said, as people lined up to buy tacos and sat on plastic portable chairs to eat them.
On Friday nights, Zavala added, he and son Andrew, a senior at Martin Luther King High School, drive to a different taco stand in the area.
Zavala said his son rates the stands on food quality. The best meat, according to his son, is produced by a vendor near John W. North High School where a guy “chops his carne asada very fine.” The best salsa is served up in the Rubidoux area of Jurupa Valley. And, yes, his son likes it hot.
Zavala said they even have nicknames for the stands. For example, the one near the high school is “North Tacos,” the one by an automotive smog check is “Smog Tacos” and the one on Chicago is “Nursery Tacos” — because it’s near a landscape nursery.
#TopStoriesPE #LocalNews #Food #Government
Ernesto Cajina passed a taco stand along Riverside’s Chicago Avenue as he left work Thursday, July 22, with his car window down.
“I just drove by and got a whiff, and I said, ‘I got to stop,’” said Cajina, who lives in Jurupa Valley. “It sure smells good.”
So he pulled over and bought three tacos — two with beef and one with chicken — at the temporary stand set up behind the sidewalk beneath portable shelters.
Cajina was hardly the only customer. Dozens of others sampled tacos and the stand’s specialty — a thick layer of sizzling meat and melted cheese spread over a bed of potatoes in an aluminum pan.
Street vendors’ stands and carts are a familiar sight across the Inland Empire. And officials in the region’s largest city are crafting an ordinance to create a more inviting business climate for the roving entrepreneurs.
People wait in line to buy fresh hot tacos at a taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
From left cooks Angel Cabrera and Ruben Jimenez make fresh hot plates to order at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Mario Zavala of Riverside holds a plate of freshly made street tacos and bag full to take home at this taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery as a family eats dinner in the background in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Cook Ruben Jimenez makes a three meat burrito for a waiting customer at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Mario Zavala of Riverside holds a plate of freshly made street tacos from the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
The Gonzalez family enjoys a street taco dinner they bought at the taco strand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Cook Angel Cabrera puts a hand full of cheese on grilled chicken as he prepares food for waiting customers at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Anthony Noriega bites into one of the two tacos he bought at the street tacos stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Maria Gonzalez, left puts salsa on her street tacos as others customers wait for their orders at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Cook Angel Cabrera cuts freshly roasted chicken off the grill to make tacos and burritos at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue near Parkview Nursery in Riverside on Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Show Caption
of
Expand
“I think it’s about time that we bring them into our formal economy,” Mayor Pro Tem Gaby Plascencia told the Riverside City Council on Tuesday, July 20, according to a meeting videotape.
“They are a part of our community,” she said. “They are here.”
But not everyone likes the idea.
About two dozen people addressed the council on the matter Tuesday, with two-thirds of commenters — many of them street vendors — urging passage of proposed changes. Others, including people representing the Riverside business community, spoke out against the plan and called on city leaders to delay action.
Councilmembers voted 6-1, with Plascencia dissenting, to postpone a decision, for two months. That was upon the suggestion of Councilmember Ronaldo Fierro.
Fierro, who owns a downtown eatery, said many restaurant owners have called him, afraid the proposed rules would enable street vendors to take away some of their business.
“There is a lot of fear. There is a lot of concern,” he said, adding that the city has received more emailed comments against the plan than in favor.
Fierro said there is no community consensus behind the plan. Because of that, he said, “I worry that … we could create a permanent divide between brick-and-mortar vendors and street vendors. And I think it’s incredibly important that those two work together peacefully.”
Councilmember Jim Perry, recently reelected, said more time is needed to strike the appropriate balance and relieve fears of people such as those who run struggling “mom-and-pop restaurants” in his Ward 6.
“They are just struggling to keep their doors open,” Perry said, saying they have yet to bounce back from coronavirus restrictions.
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The rule rewrite was triggered by a state law — Senate Bill SB 946 — that became effective Jan. 1, 2019, decriminalizing sidewalk vending with the goal of expanding economic opportunity for low-income and immigrant communities, a city report stated. The law generally bars restrictions except those that protect health and safety.
Riverside is trying to craft a measure that both protects health and expands opportunity.
The city, among other things, proposed removing the existing mandate to provide a Social Security number when applying for a pedestrian food vendor permit, while still requiring other forms of identification, the report said.
Other provisions would extend from the current 10 minutes to 30 minutes the time a roaming sidewalk vendor could stay in one place in a residential area and eliminate the cart size limit of six feet in length and four feet in width. Another rule would eliminate a ban on sound-making devices used to announce a vendor’s presence, though loudspeakers still wouldn’t be allowed.
The proposal would restrict vendors in the city’s open-space and wilderness parks such as Box Springs Mountain, Mount Rubidoux and Sycamore Canyon. Sidewalk vendors could not operate in bike lanes or passenger loading zones, among other places, and would have to leave a 4-foot walking path around them.
Sala Ponnech, representing the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 3190 Riverside, urged approval “just because the changes are sensible and fair.”
Gabriela Mendez, an organizer for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice and Riverside resident, said her parents are vendors and pay taxes. She sought to dispel fears that the changes would pave the way for vendors to take business away from brick-and-mortar businesses and avoid paying taxes.
“I myself have never left a restaurant because I heard the ice cream man outside, to go buy an ice cream,” Mendez said, according to the meeting videotape.
And yet, vendor Lizette Mendoza said, sidewalk entrepreneurs face, along with the summer heat, “the hate that our local neighbors continue to push on them.”
Restaurant owner Pam Nusser said she was concerned about the plan.
“It’s not because I’m afraid of competition,” Nusser said. “It’s that we have a lot of rules to follow.”
Nusser said she recently noticed a vendor operating at Central and Riverside avenues, selling food without proper refrigeration and without wearing gloves.
“I didn’t buy from him because there was nothing that was clean there,” she said, adding, “You don’t just have to keep hot things hot, you have to keep cold things cold.”
Janice Penner, executive director of the Riverside Downtown Partnership, wrote the city on behalf of downtown merchants. She said food handling regulations need tightening because “many of the sidewalk vendors selling food are doing so without proper attention to food safety.”
Penner wrote that while proposed regulations address parks and residential areas, additional rules are needed for commercial zones such as a prohibition against blocking access to shops.
“Our experience is that sidewalk vendors will often set up near a hospitality establishment after midnight and in a manner that impedes pedestrian traffic and safety,” she wrote.
Over at the taco stand on Chicago Avenue, Mario Zavala, a single dad who lives in Riverside’s Orangecrest neighborhood, stopped by Thursday night because he was tired and didn’t feel like cooking for his family.
Related links
Santa Ana street vendors still face hassles
Sidewalk vending is decriminalized across California
San Bernardino opens up opportunities for street vendors
Riverside must embrace street vendors, they are part of the fabric of our community
JURUPA VALLEY: Council to target street vendors
“There’s nothing that beats this atmosphere,” he said, as people lined up to buy tacos and sat on plastic portable chairs to eat them.
On Friday nights, Zavala added, he and son Andrew, a senior at Martin Luther King High School, drive to a different taco stand in the area.
Zavala said his son rates the stands on food quality. The best meat, according to his son, is produced by a vendor near John W. North High School where a guy “chops his carne asada very fine.” The best salsa is served up in the Rubidoux area of Jurupa Valley. And, yes, his son likes it hot.
Zavala said they even have nicknames for the stands. For example, the one near the high school is “North Tacos,” the one by an automotive smog check is “Smog Tacos” and the one on Chicago is “Nursery Tacos” — because it’s near a landscape nursery.
#TopStoriesPE #LocalNews #Food #Government