HomeMy WebLinkAbout032-01-2023_Open Session_General Comment_Fishman, Anna_links sanitizedFrom:Anna Fishman
To:CityClerkDepartment
Subject:Street vendor citation moratorium
Date:Wednesday, March 1, 2023 3:30:42 PM
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To the San Bernardino City Council:
My name is Anna Fishman and I am a resident of Upland. I write today to demand that you
implement an emergency moratorium on enforcement of sidewalk vending regulations for
vendors within the city of San Bernardino, and implement more legislative protections for
sidewalk vendors. I have been surprised to learn about targeted, discriminatory, citation
practices that effectively criminalize sidewalk vendors. This is an unacceptable practice, and I
urge you to issue an emergency moratorium effective immediately.
As many of you know, sidewalk vending is a vital area for economic and cultural development
within the Inland Empire. Emir Estrada, whose work focuses on sidewalk vendors in Los
Angeles, frames sidewalk vending as a “cultural economic innovation born out of need and
ingenuity”. The Community Power Collective also describes sidewalk vendors as vital to
“systems of micro regenerative economy, micro entrepreneurship, and safety in this country”.
Estrada outlines that sidewalk vending has historically been an industry that has been relied
upon by immigrants and other ethnic groups as a strategy for economic growth in the face of
being targeted by racist, xenophobic anti-immigration policy (from the Chinese Exclusion Act
in 1882 all the way to Trump’s attacks on DACA). This hostility at a broad policy level is
being continued by the rampant criminalization and citation of sidewalk vendors, who are
historically “immigrants, women, low-income folks and people of color”. They stand in the
face of “racist laws targeting vendors[...] created to ensure they couldn’t rival white
marketplaces”. In the Inland Empire, vendors today still face targeted discrimination in their
day to day lives, evident as recently as this past week when a vendor in Riverside was attacked
by an individual who tried to back into them with his car.
Ultimately, these xenophobic policies craft a narrative that immigrants, and in this case the
immigrant vendors that feed our IE community, are a threat, or population to be managed and
controlled. This could not be further from the truth. The fact that vendors persist and sell their
tacos, burritos, and ice cream day after day only shows their resilience, and the community
they continue to stand for. I urge you to not take all the cultural power that vendors hold for
granted, or worse, continue to criminalize them. It is incredibly disappointing to witness
government entities targeting individuals that are integral to the cultural fabric of the region,
not to mention the fact that these are tax- and fee-paying individuals deserving of support from
elected officials. Current citation practices impose an unjust financial burden and, oftentimes,
criminalization of sidewalk vendors, creating legal obstacles as well as an overall sense of fear
regarding government entities. This is a community that needs your support, and I implore you
to give this support by passing a moratorium on sidewalk vending citation enforcement.
There are discrepancies and many points of confusion regarding the appropriate agency to give
citations to vendors, and the different sections of the municipal code they must be in line with.
There are fundamental contradictions between the city and county jurisdiction over public
health code, and both entities have been citing vendors, in some cases double-citing for the
same violation. Furthermore, under SB 946, sidewalk vending has been decriminalized and the
only penalties for violations now ought to be administrative citations, not criminal citations
and misdemeanors. Accordingly, there ought to be no police or sheriff presence issuing
administrative citations to sidewalk vendors, and yet it is still unclear whether this is the case.
There are also unclear pathways for vendors to obtain a permit and operate legally,
particularly for vendors not covered under the blanket exception SB 972 made for non-
perishable goods. As a member of the public, I have found county, city, and code
enforcement websites to be inaccessible and see no clear pathway or checklist for vendors to
operate completely legally. All of this goes to show that there are still many barriers to a
smooth implementation of SB 946 and 972 for sidewalk vendors in San Bernardino, and it is
unjust to continue citing them without a) clear regulations and b) the infrastructure to support
such operations through the permitting application process.
According to the San Bernardino County Environmental Health Services, “SB972 limits
enforcement of violations related to CMFO to be punishable only by an administrative fine”. I
would argue that there is still clearly confusion among the community as to what counts as
“related to” the practice of sidewalk vending, in terms of individual violations of SB 946 and
SB 972 as compared to other sections of the municipal code. Chapter 5.04.495 and 5.04.498
establish “transient merchants/vendors” as unlawful and violations as misdemeanors, which
seemingly directly contradicts SB 946 in its decriminalization of sidewalk vending. These
multiple examples of contradictory and out-of-date regulations demonstrate that the City ought
to re-examine its municipal code and enforcement practices around sidewalk vending to
ensure it is in compliance with state laws. This will take time, and it is unethical for vendors to
continue to be cited while the city is working internally to make the regulations around
sidewalk vending consistent and accessible to the parties most impacted by them, vendors
themselves. The City must issue an interim ordinance to approve a moratorium on these
citation practices in the meantime.
A moratorium on citation and enforcement will provide the City time to think carefully
through what Senate Bills 946 and 972 mean for San Bernardino without jeopardizing vendors
in that process. This is not unprecedented: the city of Los Angeles issued a similar moratorium
in June 2021, pausing the penalties that come with citations for vendors through the COVID-
19 state of emergency and 6 months after. According to the agenda for the council meeting
this was passed at, the city decided to “a. Provide a status update on their discussions with the
County Department of Public Health in regards to its cart permit requirements and how the
City and the County can collaborate to create a vending program in Los Angeles that allows
for the participation of all vendors. b. Continue to utilize an education-based approach to
compliance with the rules and regulations of park and sidewalk vending. c. Issue penalty-free
notices of violation specific to park and sidewalk vending without a permit”, all of which
provide a useful model for San Bernardino. Such a moratorium is in line with the intent of SB
946 and 972, which both were passed with much collaboration from vendors along the way.
Vendors also ought to be involved in considering the implementation of the bills, and that
cannot happen if they are constantly in fear of getting misdemeanors or debilitating fees. If a
moratorium is not passed, there will continue to be unjustified citations that provoke fear and
mistrust on top of flooding the court system with unnecessary cases.
During this moratorium, I urge you to:
1.
Address the contradictions in the municipal code outlined above and ensure compliance
with SB 946 and 972
2.
Create streamlined enforcement regulations in communication with San Bernardino
Environmental Health Services
3.
Create accessible guidelines for vendors regarding regulations and necessary permits
and ensure there are staff prepared to provide technical assistance to vendors and walk
them through the application process
Additionally, I echo all the demands that attorneys from Public Counsel and the ACLU wrote
in their letter dated July 26, 2021, including:
4.
“Cease all issuance of citations to street vendors under Chapter 5.04 of the San
Bernardino Municipal Code.
5.
Eliminate the practice of requiring vendors to sign intimidating forms in connection
with alleged violations. We continue to see this with sidewalk vendors who attempt to
pay their administrative citations.
6.
Bar the San Bernardino Police Department from enforcing health regulations
promulgated by the County of San Bernardino.
7.
Institute the right to request an ability-to-pay determination for low-income vendors.
I also support their request that “you use your full authority under state and local law to
dismiss all outstanding street vending citations issued in violation of state and local law and
waive all corresponding fines and fees that may have been assessed pursuant thereto”. It is
vital that these corrective actions benefit not only future vendors, but also that those past cases
with vendors that have been unjustly cited are dismissed retroactively.
I would also urge you to not only align the municipal code and enforcement regulations with
state law, but also consider ways to better foster and support the sidewalk vending community.
As described in a report out of the Community Economic Development Clinic at the UCLA
School of Law, one way to do so would be “implement[ing] special vending districts in areas
with unique safety and accessibility concerns, giving vendors an opportunity to self-organize
and work with area residents and businesses to develop specialized regulations that ensure
safety and economic inclusion.” As the report (which focuses on Los Angeles but holds policy
changes that can be applied in San Bernardino as well) demonstrates, supporting the economic
development of low-income, entrepreneurial sidewalk vendors advances racial and economic
justice. According to its authors, “No one benefits from this status quo: not the vendors forced
to work in the shadows; not the DPH professionals whose mission is to support public health;
and not the consumers who want to enjoy LA’s [but also, San Bernardino’s] iconic street
food.”
San Bernardino sidewalk vendors are not a community to be criminalized, but rather need to
be uplifted, supported, and appreciated for their invaluable contributions to the culture of the
Inland Empire. As a concerned member of the surrounding community and advocate for racial
and economic justice I demand that you pass a moratorium on the issuance of citations
regarding violations of sidewalk vending regulations immediately.
Sincerely,
Anna Fishman