The Latest: Los Angeles council legalizes street vendors
Mannequin heads with beanies are placed on a table as a young girl looks at goods for sale on a sidewalk Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018, in Los Angeles. They seem to be everywhere on the streets of Los Angeles - pushcarts and tables filled with everything from hot dogs and tamales to toys and tools. Such sales are illegal, although the law is rarely enforced. Now, after a decade of debate and compromise, the Los Angeles City Council will consider an ordinance Wednesday that would grant permits to sidewalk vendors. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Latest on legalizing street vending in Los Angeles (all times local):
11:40 a.m.
The Los Angeles City Council has voted overwhelmingly to make street vending legal.
The 13-0 vote Wednesday came in a council chamber packed with more than 200 street vendors who broke into tears and shouts in Spanish of "we won, we won" after the vote was tabulated.
The decision follows a decade of debate about street vending.
Now it's up to the city to figure out how it will put a program in place to issue permits to tens of thousands of vendors who sell everything from tacos to toys in parks and on sidewalks all over town.
City officials said they've given themselves a deadline of January 2020 to figure out how much to charge for permits and to put a process in place for issuing them.
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10:13 p.m.
They seem to be everywhere on the streets of Los Angeles — pushcarts and tables filled with everything from hot dogs and tamales to toys and tools.
Such sales are illegal, although the law is rarely enforced.
Now, after a decade of debate and compromise, the Los Angeles City Council will consider an ordinance Wednesday that would grant permits to sidewalk vendors.
If the measure is enacted, it would put the city on the same legal footing as New York and Chicago on the issue.
An estimated 50,000 vendors peddle their wares along Los Angeles sidewalks and in parks and other public places. Many are immigrants who have pushed for years for the change.