Carts Caught in Culture Clash : Vendors: Some view San Fernando's street refreshment sales as a Latino tradition. Others cite health and competition concerns in calling for a crackdown.

By RICHARD LEE COLVIN

June 5, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

To some, the Latino vendors who sell snacks and refreshments on the streets of San Fernando are a familiar and welcome sight, part of the backdrop in a city whose population is 83% Latino.

To others, including some Latinos and many Anglos, those peddling their wares from pushcarts as they would in Mexico or other Latin American countries are looked upon warily. There are worries about whether the carts and their products are sanitary, whether the vendors are licensed and whether they take revenue from established businesses by undercutting their prices.

Responding to constituents who hold the latter view, the San Fernando City Council, which has a Latino majority, appears ready to crack down on such free-lance capitalism. But the council majority must balance the views of many of the city’s business leaders, who are predominantly Anglo, against the traditions of the city’s growing Latino majority.

A vending ordinance, which has preliminary approval and returns for council ratification later this month, would make unauthorized vending a misdemeanor subject to a fine of $500 and a jail sentence of up to six months. Since 1984 the maximum penalty for unlicensed vending or vending in commercial areas has been a civil fine of up to $50.

Councilman Jose Hernandez, a professor of urban studies at Cal State Northridge who said he often buys the vendors’ fruit-flavored ice pops, said he voted for the measure because he believed that it was little different from the current one, except for its penalties.

But Hernandez said the stiffer penalties, which he does not support, are unenforceable. “I don’t think we are going to lock those people up. The vendors . . . don’t put graffiti on our walls, they don’t break into our homes, they are not on welfare, they are not drunk drivers.”

He said the council’s Latino majority was reluctant to create tension on the council by objecting. “We haven’t said anything because we didn’t want to alienate the Anglos and because we didn’t think it would be enforced, but Latinos are the majority and the minority cannot dictate to the majority,” Hernandez said. Eventually there will be a confrontation, he said.

Councilman James B. Hansen said Latinos as well as Anglos have told him they want street selling controlled.

“Along with abandoned cars and graffiti, this type of activity totally unchecked would mar the image of the city,” Hansen said. “We can’t have a constant line of these people in the neighborhoods.”

If the new ordinance is ineffective, San Fernando Mayor Doude Wysbeek said he would support a citywide ban on the roving merchants, whose wares include fruit, sandwiches, ice cream, corn on the cob and a frozen fruit treat known as a paleta that is popular in Mexico.

He said his biggest concern is the health threat of unsanitary carts. “We’re talking about seeing more and more food products, unmarked, unlabeled and people are buying it,” Wysbeek said. “I don’t care if it is Latino people . . . it has to do with health standards.”

Councilman Salvador Ponce said he was having second thoughts about the criminal provisions of the proposed vending ordinance and would try to get them changed.

San Fernando is by no means alone in struggling to respond to the growth of street vending, often a first step up the economic ladder for enterprising immigrants.

A report under consideration by the city of Los Angeles, where street vending is now a misdemeanor, recommends decriminalization because the tough rules “have not proven to be an effective means of addressing a growing problem” and have placed a drain on police resources.

As in Los Angeles, the push for a crackdown in San Fernando, particularly in the city’s downtown mall, largely has come from merchants. Usually, illegal vendors are merely urged to leave town and annually only a dozen or so have to be cited, city officials said.

Dennis Levine, a co-owner of Peoples Store for Men and Boys, a clothing retailer located at the mall, said a crackdown would “send a message out there that we’re not going to tolerate” illegal vending.

He said vendors pose a health threat and contribute to trash and graffiti problems. “There’s a certain culture that’s behind it and I’m not one that says we have to eliminate a culture . . . but we all have to live by rules,” Levine said.

Another merchant in the mall, Victor Ceballos, said vendors ought to be licensed and made to meet standards for cleanliness. But he said he did not consider vendors to be a problem.

“The mall customers . . . they don’t complain,” said Ceballos, who heads the mall’s merchant association. “They see all the vendors and they feel like they are at home.”

One day this past week Jose Munoz, 23, was selling 50-cent crushed ice drinks known as raspado without a license near Santa Rosa Church in south San Fernando. On Munoz’s cart were a block of ice wrapped in a towel, a scraper, paper cups and four flavors of fruit juice.

Regarding the possible crackdown, he said: “I’m supporting myself honestly. As long as my things are clean, why should they bother me? I don’t have a visa or insurance or anything. This is what I do.”

Ofelia Cortez, who lives down the street from the church and buys from Munoz regularly, defended his right to sell there even without a license. She said she prefers to buy from street vendors in the neighborhood because their goods are cheaper and fresher than those in stores.

“What harm is the poor man doing?” Cortez said. “He’s just trying to earn money for his family in Mexico. I know what it is to be in a new country where you don’t know anyone, working hard to get by. If they can sell more downtown, let them.”

Whatever the City Council ends up doing, Hernandez said he does not expect the vendors to be eliminated.

“It’s part of the Chicano or Mexican culture . . . and you cannot destroy culture,” he said. “People have tried to destroy our culture for a long time . . . and they haven’t been able to and they are not going to destroy it in 1991.”

Staff writer Sebastian Rotella contributed to this story.