Crackdown Sells the Vendors Short
Regarding the San Fernando City Council’s plan to crack down on street vendors, I would like to remind the council that:
* Buyers can observe sanitary conditions before they purchase food.
* Licenses don’t ensure anything except that the city has revenue.
* Price fixing, even by ensuring that everyone has the same overhead costs, is considered immoral and illegal.
And, most important, if and when too many vendors roam the streets, each will sell fewer products and some will quit to do more profitable things.
In the end, you and I, the City Council members and the citizens are responsible for our own safety and well-being. No matter how many laws are passed or how severely violators are punished, laws will not create Utopia. Let’s stop trying to create Utopia. Let’s face the facts of life and choose freedom instead.
GAIL LIGHTFOOT. Lightfoot wrote as past chairman of the Libertarian Party of California .
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
