Free street food vendors from excess red tape

For plain and simple linguistic reasons, “cottage”-made food sounds a whole lot more appetizing than a meal offered for purchase by a “compact mobile food operation.”

Which smacks of airline food. Which is barely food at all.

But both the above terminologies are used in the language of a bill, SB 972, pending in the California Legislature that would make it easier and cheaper to sell dishes that have been cooked and prepared in a home kitchen to hungry members of the public without having to cut through so much bureaucratic red tape — and spend so much money — that the whole idea doesn’t make economic sense.

Or, for food cart vendors, to have to constantly be on the lookout for a run from the law because it was too expensive to comply with existing licensing costs.

As the pro-street-food-forthe-people website Inclusive Action for the City explains, “Sidewalk vending was legalized in California in 2018 when Senate Bill 946 (authored by former Senator Ricardo Lara) established standards for local regulations of sidewalk vending.”

So, after years of it being illegal, common as it still was, to be able to sell the ubiquitous bacon-wrapped hot dog on the street — or even a superb home-steamed tamal wrapped in a banana leaf — it became legal to do so four years ago.

In theory.

Because the reality is that the permits still required by government, along with other costs imposed by California counties, can still make it impossible to sell homemade dishes.

As Inclusive Action notes, “Despite the passage of this landmark legislation, sidewalk vendors still face immense barriers. A 2020 study on the public health benefits of sidewalk food vending found that 85% of cities and 75% of counties remain out of compliance with SB 946 by continuing to restrict sidewalk vending.”

But even when they do comply with the law and nominally allow hot dogs to be sold on the hot summer sidewalks, governments still find ways to make it nearly impossible to actually do so.

A sidewalk permit, for instance, in Los Angeles County costs over $1,500 — where are the mostly poor Angelenos considering starting such an enterprise supposed to come up with that. That county also requires vendors to carry about 250 pounds of water for handwashing and food preparation in their cart.

Cleanliness is imperative for good health, but that’s a lot of water.

So SB 972 would streamline permitting procedures, cart design and the requirements for equipment. It would also make it easier to get into the shared commissary spaces where many vendors cook their meals. Inclusive Action says that this could save vendors an annual $1,518 from waived plancheck fees and $772 annually permits — “the equivalent of three month’s worth of income from vending on the weekend.”

The bill also addresses the high cost of buying the health-department-approved carts — which can in some cases cost up to $15,000. Some fancy food trucks selling a large variety of items might need that kind of complexity. But this legislation would allow those just selling those excellent tamales, for instance, to get by with a lowtech operation.

SB 972 was authored by Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Huntington Park, with co-authors Sens. Wendy Carillo and Maria Elena Durazo and Susan Rubio. It was introduced in February, passed the state Senate in May and is working its way through the Assembly. In the interest of California’s economy and culinary culture — and simply good street eats for the people — we hope to see it pass and get a signature from the governor.