can you fill it our if you are not a resident of boyle heights?

One way around the problem of politicians is to establish street vending as a right.

By defining something as a right, it depoliticizes it – you don’t need the favor of a politician to assert and exercise your right.

Restaurants and businesses get involved in politics, in a big way, because they need land to operate. Land use is organized into zones, and land or organized by zones. Municipal-level politicians influence zoning.

Mobile vendors don’t need to worry so much about zones.

Mobile vendors need to worry about the permission to vend. If street vending is legalized, the main risk is that competition will bloom, causing profit margins to shrink to nothing, and street vending will become unprofitable. This will lead to “sharecropping” situations where impoverished vendors go into debt to do business.

The normal way to regulate this problem is to restrict the competition. For example, taxi drivers in NYC have a medallion that grants the bearer the right to be a taxi. This prevents excessive competition that would drop wages.

Once that happens, the politician becomes a mediator between the vendors and restaurants, who always want fewer medallions, and the people, who want more medallions.

It preserves the culture of unlicensed street vending, too, because some will refuse to pay for the medallion.

That’s my idea. What do people think?

Thank you

Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council General Board Meeting
Thursday, November 19, 2009
6:15 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Aliso Pico Recreation Center
370 South Clarence Street., Los Angeles, CA 90033

And just like rob thomas said the community maybe more divided on the issue. Local business are usually the ones who complain against vendors because the they do take away business from local restaurants, franchises as well as independent businesses. Some local residents are happy that they are cracking down on them. So ur not going to find a united Boyle Heights on this issue. I think we can all say that we like food vendors, but not everyone would say that they like them next to their house or on their street.

Some how i doubt that u’ll see what u saw in Xochimilco most vendors are driven to sell food cause they cant get a better job due to their status in the country. SO they also wont want to attract to much attention, especially from the police, cause the last thing some of them can afford to legal trouble.