SAN DIEGO —
Controversial efforts to crack down on street vendors in San Diego suffered another setback last week when City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera canceled a hearing scheduled for Tuesday on long-awaited new legislation.
It’s at least the fifth time that potential new limits on vendors have been delayed since the state passed a law in 2018 aiming to encourage street vending as a new class of small business.
Merchant groups in San Diego say the city badly needs a new vending law to address what they say is unfair competition and illegal dumping of trash by upstart vendors in several areas of the city, including downtown, Balboa Park and the city’s beach communities.
They say it’s crucial for that new law to be in place by the summer 2022 tourist season, but it would be ideal to have a new law before Padres’ Opening Day in April.
“After months — years actually — we got the rug pulled out from under us,” said Gaslamp Quarter Association head Michael Trimble of the latest delay last week. “This has been since 2019 that we can’t seem to have rules in place.”
Advocates for street vendors say the critics have exaggerated the dangers and chaos created by the vendors, and that those complaining are mostly businesses frustrated they are facing new competition from vendors.
Amid that ongoing heated battle, multiple city officials have tried and failed to craft compromise legislation that will appease angry merchants without stifling the emerging vendor community, which is made up mostly of minorities.
The latest effort has been led by Councilmember Dr. Jennifer Campbell, who took over the city’s proposed street vendor ordinance last spring and promised a new law would be unveiled in October.
Campbell, who represents some beach areas significantly affected by vendors, announced this fall that the legislation would be delayed a few months. But she gave merchant groups hope by stipulating that a vote was scheduled for Dec. 14.
While the legislation was never unveiled, people familiar with Campbell’s efforts said the proposal would have banned vendors in some sensitive areas and encouraged vendors to take classes on health, safety and entrepreneurism.
In late November, Campbell’s staff issued a “notice of hearing” for the Dec. 14 vote. In response to a Union-Tribune request at that time to see the proposed law, a Campbell spokesman said “there are still some late adjustments being made to the ordinance that need to clear the City Attorney’s Office.”
Those delays continued into December, and Elo-Rivera, who replaced Campbell as Council President on Monday, said on Thursday that problems finalizing the proposal and the importance of the legislation made canceling the scheduled vote the right move.
“Our office did not receive a draft of the Street Vending Ordinance as of the deadline for it to be docketed for public review along with the rest of the agenda for Dec. 14,” he said. “As of today, we have still not yet received a draft of the ordinance.”
As a result, Elo-Rivera pulled the item from Tuesday’s council agenda and sent the issue backward to the council’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, which means a delay of at least a few weeks — and possibly a few months.
“Given the importance of the topic and to be consistent with our commitment to transparency, we believe it is important for the council and the public to have sufficient time to analyze the proposed ordinance and its impacts,” he said.
Trimble, the Gaslamp official, said the delay is frustrating because without a law in place the Police Department and the county Health Department are unable and unwilling to conduct enforcement on unruly vendors.
He said merchants don’t want to criminalize vending, they just don’t want vendors to have an unfair advantage over brick-and-mortar businesses — particularly restaurants — because one group has to follow certain rules while the other does not.
“Let’s have vending, but let’s have everyone playing on the same level playing field,” he said.
The city is considering some rules on street vendors after the implementation of a state law allowing them. In Ocean Beach a man and women looked at gems, jewels and crystals being sold by a street vendor in 2019.
(John Gibbins/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
While advocates of vendors say they welcome new city legislation focused on gray areas in state law, they want any policy proposal to be based on data and analysis instead of knee-jerk reactions. They also say the rules should vary by neighborhood.
Two of the most vocal advocates, the Logan Heights Community Development Corporation and the City Heights Community Development Corporation, did not respond last week to requests for comment.
The controversy comes in the wake of SB 946, a state law passed in 2018 that says any vendor regulations created by cities must focus on solving health and safety problems, not limiting economic competition.
Supporters said the goal of the law was to encourage a new class of small entrepreneurs among California’s low-income residents, many of them immigrants with families.
Since 2018, many cities across the state have passed local ordinances that regulate street vendors in the narrow ways that SB 946 allows.
In San Diego County, cities that have approved such regulations include Carlsbad, Vista, El Cajon and National City.
Then-Mayor Kevin Faulconer proposed city legislation in 2019 that was hailed by merchant groups but criticized by advocates for vendors.
Faulconer’s proposal would have banned street vendors in high-traffic neighborhoods and parks, but it was never brought forward for a council vote after some critics called it an unfair crackdown with racist overtones.
Mayor Todd Gloria, who replaced Faulconer one year ago, said in February he was committed to crafting legislation that would be supported by advocates and critics of street vending. He promised to unveil a proposed law last spring.
But work on a city ordinance shifted quietly last spring from Gloria to Campbell.
Last week, Gloria said the latest delay makes sense.
“The decision to pull this item is reflective of the need to ensure a robust public process that provides ample opportunity for public review and comment,” the mayor said. “The mayor remains committed to ensuring that the city has an ordinance in place as quickly as possible that provides pathways to micro entrepreneurship while protecting public health and safety.”
Dike Anyiwo, a public policy advisor for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said it’s important to get some legislation on the books to start the inevitable process of tinkering with the new law based on its impact.
“The chamber is very much in support of having rules on the books,” he said. “The chamber is not here to constrict the marketplace. We want to make sure there is clarity.”
No date has been set for the proposal to be presented to the economic development panel.
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