A lawsuit by a coalition of Los Angeles street vendors over the city's no-vending zones can move forward, a judge ruled Thursday.
The ruling allows the challenge to the city's ordinance to move ahead and overrules the city's first legal challenge to the petition brought in December by Community Power Collective, East Los Angeles Community Corp. and Inclusive Action for the City, and two sidewalk vendors, Merlin Alvarado and Ruth Monroy.
The petition challenges the city's "no-vending zones" ordinance that prohibits sidewalk food sales within 500 feet of many of the city's most popular neighborhoods and tourist destinations, including the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The city maintains that allowing sidewalk vending in tourist areas and sports venues causes overcrowding that leads to pedestrians walking in the street.
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The petitioners allege that no-vending zones conflict with SB 946, the 2018 California law that decriminalized street vending.
The coalition and the vendors say that in arguing that sidewalk sales in the targeted venues causes pedestrians to walk in the street, the city does not offer data demonstrating when and where pedestrians have encroached on the roadway, whether sidewalk vending is the cause or whether alternatives to a vending ban have been considered.
According to the judge's ruling, the city has not shown that its restrictions are directly related to objective health, safety or welfare concerns. He further said the city does not explain why the seven no-vendor locations were chosen, what overcrowding has occurred at those locations, why the 500-foot barrier was selected and whether sidewalk vending is directly related to the concerns stated.
