INGLEWOOD (SBE) – Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. closed the scheduled public hearing on the Street Vending Ordinance and tabled the matter to an unknown date during the city council meeting held June 20.
The city scheduled the public hearing to establish guidelines for street vending in accordance with state law.
“The ordinance would create a no-vending buffer zone around entertainment venues, schools, and other sensitive uses,” said Code Enforcement Manager Jerry Tucker. “Department staff desires a 1,000-foot buffer zone, however, City Attorney [Ken Campos] office reduced it to a 500-foot buffer zone.”
The ordinance identifies the cemetery, hospital, places of worship, swap meets and the water treatment plant as being covered under the ordinance.
The staff report included a Street Vendor Restricted Radius Map which shows what the 500-foot radius would look like.
The proposed 500-foot radius map would only benefit the Kia Forum as it would cover the entire property to the sidewalk. For SoFi Stadium the 500-foot radius would not extend beyond the parking lot to the street.
“For SoFi [Stadium] t would not take us to Prairie or Pincay with the 500-foot radius,” said Tucker. “For the Forum the footprint is sufficient enough to cover Manchester, Prairie, Kareem Court, and Pincay.”
“With a 1,000-foot radius SoFi would take in portions of Pincay, Prairie and would still be on property to the South and to the East as well,” said Tucker. “For the Forum it would have a greater footprint into the residential community going three blocks to the West.”
Mayor Butts then asked if the City would allow sidewalk vending in residential areas.
“Certain provisions do allow it for roaming if you have push carts for ice cream, that is one provision allowed under state law,” said Butts.
Butts then made a motion to adopt the 1,000-foot radius.
Councilman Eloy Morales Jr. then said what the mayor proposed would move it too far, impacting the residential area and other small businesses. Morales then asked Campos to explain his thinking on the 500-foot radius he proposed.
“There’s approx. two to three other cities that are currently being sued or are in court for their boundary limits,” said Campos. “The one in the city of Los Angeles is at 500 feet and they are being challenged because of the state law.”
“The city of LA did no study, similarly to Inglewood having no study, as to the basis as to the restriction of 500 or 1,000 feet,” said Campos. “So, unless the city of LA is able to prove as to whether there are any health or safety violation issues, the courts are probably going to find in favor of the cart vendors.”
The mayor didn’t find that sufficient to stop the City from establish guidelines.
“They can sue for 500 or 1,000 so what difference would that make?” asked Butts.
Morales wanted to be able to control the vendors from bleeding into the residential area.
“What ends up happening if they give them a radius they are going to be right outside of it,” said Morales. “They basically go in 500 feet and I have seen the vendors that are literally standing there with full-on bars for people walking by.”
The biggest challenge for the council is finding a boundary that is suitable for SoFi Stadium considering 500 feet keeps vendors on their property while a 1,000-foot radius will extend into the residential areas.
Tucker didn’t address if there could be two separate boundaries for each venue. Whatever is established under the Street Vending Ordinance would also include the Intuit Dome, when it comes online in 2024, although that venue wasn’t addressed by showing a radius map for the property.
Either radius around the Intuit Dome would impact the residential area that surrounds it to the South and possibly the West.
“I’m more worried about how we accommodate the residents because another thing you are going to encourage is the crowding and the actual timeframe it takes to clear the area,” said Morales. “The Governor’s points…his ordinance in regards to…it doesn’t matter about a competitive economy in regards to the small business.”
The question then came up if street vending is allowed in neighborhoods.
“There is a provision that allows for roaming, however, the City, by way of its zoning rights, can restrict the times,” explained Tucker.
Councilman Alex Padilla also agreed with the 1,000-foot radius.
“We need to be a little bit more lenient when it comes to this and if the court says we need to pull back, then we can revisit it,” said Padilla. “In Santa Monica we had a lot of vendors come on the beach and now they’re on the pier and they had to pull it back because it got so out of control.”
“We have to abide by state law but we also have our restrictions that we can impose,” said Padilla.
Councilwoman Dionne Faulk also agreed with the 1,000-foot radius.
“I also agree we should enlarge it to the 1,000 radius…in my readings, my understanding is the 500 radius actually for SoFi Stadium would still put us within the SoFi lot so it doesn’t make sense to have a 500 radius and it doesn’t extend to the sidewalk outside SoFi Stadium,” said Faulk.
She then explained that the carts, around SoFi Stadium, restricts movements for attendees and the crowd ends up walking in the streets to get around the carts.
“We need to jump on top of that to make sure no one is hurt to attend a concert,” said Faulk.
There was a motion on the floor to vote on establishing a 1,000 feet radius surrounding the venues within the Inglewood Sports and Entertainment District, churches, the cemetery, and schools.
“There are too many moving parts so I want to withdraw that motion and table this matter,” said Butts.
Councilwoman Gloria Gray also agreed with the 1,000-foot radius but wanted to hear from the public on the matter since they will be most affected.
Hollywood Park Management Company, who manages the property where SoFi Stadium is located, are regular campaign donors to the members to the City’s elected officials.
Only one resident came forward during public comment.
“The food vendors are one issue but if we start allowing vendors we don’t Inglewood to start looking like Manchester and Western and Manchester and Vermont with clothes hanging on the side of the wall and trash everywhere,” said Yolanda Davidson. “It’s going to cost the City more to clean up.”
“We want to keep our city clean and safe,” said Davidson. “I definitely don’t want people having stuff for sale all over the city which I don’t think is appropriate.”
Street vending is more than regulating street cooks but also the sale of any goods on the public right of way including Easter baskets, clothes and services.
“This isn’t about us vs them and the reason the state made the law is to provide a measure of equity for people who couldn’t afford to lease business spaces and that’s the intent,” explained Butts.
“What I want to make sure of is that they have City permits and if you vend food you have to have an inspection from the health department, so how does the health department ensure that the person has a current permit?” asked Butts.
Tucker explained the County would inspect the cart and it would have an affixed sticker to it.
“The sticker would indicate basic health standards are met, washing of the hands, temperature regulation, things that are in their governance,” said Tucker.
The discussion then turned to limitations on hours street vending could occur.
“Included in the ordinance, Residential Zones would have operating hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mixed-Residential Zone would be 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and all others are 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.,” said Tucker.
Mayor Butts then decided to table the discussion, however, there was a motion on the floor to extend the radius zone to 1,000 feet around the specified venues.
“I withdraw that right now because we need to do a lot more on this,” said Butts. “I want to reschedule the public hearing and let’s go back and give it more thought.”
The council voted unanimously to table and reschedule the public hearing to an unspecified date.