We Can Do Better: The Challenges and Opportunities for Street Vendors in a Post-Pandemic Economy
By John Broadway & Rudy Espinoza
In May, we held another round of our Street Vendor Emergency Fund, passing out $400 cash cards to 114 street vendors in Los Angeles. And since last year, we've put nearly $650,000 collectively into the hands of over 1,400 different street vendors.
Recently, a neighbor said we need to do more of this work to help street vendors. But do we? Should street vendors have to rely on small nonprofits and mutual aid groups for lifelines?
While we're proud of our work, the Street Vendor Emergency Fund is the direct result of a lack of dedicated resources to support micro-entrepreneurs like street vendors. Most vendors have been unable to access the pandemic relief afforded by other businesses. Rather than provide reactionary emergency assistance, we need to find proactive solutions that will keep vendors from being in such a precarious situation to begin with.
Quite simply, we need to work ourselves out of our job of fighting for street vendor rights and needs. That means addressing the following issues:
Lack of inclusion and equity in government relief programs and systems - Government relief money during the pandemic hasn't been widely accessible for most street vendors. Many street vendors operate without a bank account or lack financial documentation to prove they've been affected by the pandemic. Plus, government relief documentation requirements remain stringent. Many of them required 2019 and 2018 tax returns, and in the City of LA, entrepreneurs were required to have had a business tax registration certificate (BTRC) before the pandemic. But sidewalk vending wasn't legal until 2019, and no permit was in place until 2020 - so there was little to no chance for them to get the required documentation.
LA's Al Fresco program, which allowed restaurants to operate in the public right of way during the pandemic, also initially left out street vendors. Although Mayor Garcetti rightly included street vendors as an eligible group in the second phase of the program, there still wasn't an equitable pathway for them to participate. The program requires the vendor to have an active and up-to-date sidewalk vending permit. For food vendors, this is nearly impossible to get through the County of Los Angeles’ outdated permit systems.
Our Emergency Fund has been successful because we intentionally sought to remove barriers that would put the “burden of proof” on the entrepreneur. We relied on partnerships with trusted organizations, community-based networks to identify participants, and a committee of vendors who helped confirm need and processed self-attestation forms.
Exorbitant permit fees - Annual city permits are priced at $291 for all sidewalk vendors, poised to be $541 after July 1 unless a new city ordinance is passed to extend this. Food vendors must also pay county permits that cost $772 yearly. New food vendors looking to permit their cart must also pay $746 for a cart inspection. By contrast, licensing permits for California physicians cost $820 every two years, in a profession with median salaries of more than $200,000 annually, compared to the average street vendor salary of $11,300.
Most cities invest in small business programs that they believe will benefit the greater good. Instead, the City makes street vendors take on the full cost of paying for a permitting program that has been designed to primarily administer citations..
Outdated food code guidelines - The California Retail Food Code dictates how vendors can serve food - whether that is whole fruits, cooked meals, or cottage foods like croissants. This code was written with brick-and-mortar food businesses and food trucks in mind. Street vendors are expected to meet these standards even though their businesses operate in an entirely different way and at a different volume. For example, the code stipulates that restaurants and food vendors cooking to order must have a three-compartment washing station, including washing, rinsing, and sanitizing sink for dishes - but what if vendors only provide disposable ware and sanitize their serving utensils? There is no room for this type of flexibility within the code. This lack of right-sized code creates insurmountable barriers for vendors accessing code-compliant carts.
Tenuous vendor Safety - Vendors are routinely the targets of robbery and other violent crimes. Between 2010 and 2019, crimes against LA street vendors increased 366%, from 38 to 166 crimes per year.
This is all before the pandemic. Now, less foot traffic in the usually heavily populated areas street vendors sell, combined with the hard times of this economic downturn, has made vendors more vulnerable. Little to nothing has been done to protect them, aside from the work of community-based organizations and mutual-aid groups.
To address these issues, we need to center the experiences of street vendors in our policy-making and program designs. We've found the following to be feasible solutions for these prevalent issues:
Establish a dedicated and equitable grant program for street vendors - Equity means we meet the most vulnerable where they are to ensure everyone has what they need. Most grant programs available to entrepreneurs have required an online application and have been distributed using a “first come, first serve,” method. Street vendors, especially those who are not technologically savvy, will not be able to compete fairly. We should create a dedicated grant program for street vendors that is administered with the help of community-based organizations who can help them apply. A “Street vendor recovery fund” is being proposed by several mayors and a version is currently being discussed in the state legislature.
Ensure that permit fees are not being used to criminalize vendors - Currently, the City of LA’s street vending program allocates millions to hire armed officers who enforce street vending laws, and only a few hundred thousand to educate and support street vendors who want to get permits. The rise in crimes against street vendors is compounded by the fact that many street vendors feel marginalized in our local economies. By welcoming street vendors, we can create an environment where people feel less inclined to target them, and vendors feel more emboldened to speak out when they see something suspicious.
Create an equitable permitting program - The City must alter the tax and fee structure, ideally to allow a sliding scale of costs based on income. There's precedent for a sliding scale on business fees in other systems like the Business Tax Registration Certificate. A successful program should also include education for the vendor on the process and we should encourage the development of initiatives like mobile permitting kiosks to increase access for vendors.
Modernize the food code with street vendor input - The California Retail Food Code provides legal guidelines for all food-based businesses in the State, and unfortunately, some of the code is so restrictive that many food businesses can’t comply. In order to give low-income food entrepreneurs like street vendors a fair shot at participating in our formal economy, the California Retail Food Code must be modernized. The Code should continue to protect public health, but it must be sensitive to realities that many entrepreneurs experience. Street vendors themselves should be engaged in amending the California Retail Food Code; a range of vendors from those who sell whole fruit and pre-packaged chips to those who make tacos and pupusas on site can help inform policy-makers on how the Code can work in the 21st century.
Despite the amount of improvement that still needs to be made, we feel hopeful when we see the progress on both the City, County, and State levels to meet vendors' needs. In May, Mayor Eric Garcetti's budget proposal, which included 1.3 million dollars to help street vendors clear the bureaucratic permit process and buy modernized carts, was approved.
This win comes a few months after the County approved the Sidewalk Vending Pilot Program for the unincorporated areas of districts 1,2, and 4. Inclusive Action has taken part in leading this program and we're working with the Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) and the Department of Public Health (DPH) to design affordable street carts that meet all the code requirements of DPH. Moreover, the program calls for technical assistance and education of vendors to learn the “ins and outs” of business permitting and other logistical matters. Designing an affordable cart and educating vendors under the oppressive retail food code has not been easy, but we are seeing clear areas for improvement that we hope can support our state leaders in leading reforms.
The California legislature is currently deliberating on a proposal that would allocate $50 million dollars to establish a Street Vendor Recovery Fund (now being called the Micro Business Relief Fund) that would help street vendors participate in our economic recovery. The Fund would issue $5,000 to qualifying street vendors that can help them with any business-related purchases and/or debts.
If the state measure passes and the City and County efforts make their intended impact, there is cause for celebration. But if we've learned anything from our successful campaign to legalize street vending in 2019, it's that we can't allow wins to make us complacent. If anything, implementation of programs and policies is just as or more important than the policy or program itself to make sure it is truly serving the needs of vendors. Street vendors have long been neglected, and the recent rise in crimes is simply evidence that we haven’t invested enough in making sure that street vendors are welcomed in our communities by our local and state government entities. We can do better.