Street Vending Expansion On Hollywood Boulevard Planned

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Sidewalk vending could soon be legal on Hollywood Boulevard and near the Hollywood Bowl as part 0f a loosening of city rules that prohibit street vendors from operating in some of the busiest pedestrian areas in Los Angeles.

The City Council on Wednesday unanimously advanced plan to establish a first-of-its-kind "special vending zone" for Hollywood Boulevard, the Hollywood Bowl and the surrounding area. City staffers will return to the council at a future date with an ordinance for the council's consideration that would create a special vending zone pilot program.

Over the last decade, lawmakers across the state have worked to create a legal framework for street vending, which previously had been criminalized or conducted in a legal gray area. As part of that effort, Los Angeles established a permitting process, as well as a ban on vending in certain areas — including the area around the Walk of Fame and Hollywood and Highland.

Community groups sued the city last December on behalf of sidewalk vendors in a challenge to the city's vending restrictions. In October, the groups lauded the council's move to lift the vending restrictions, but said the efforts don't go far enough to address the harms done to street vendors over the last five years.

"But this motion does not actually propose to eliminate the unlawful `No Vending Zones,' and it risks repeating the process that resulted in the illegal restrictions in the first place. The motion does not immediately end the city's unjust exclusion of vendors from entire neighborhoods, nor does it address the deep financial, emotional and psychological harms experienced by vendors from years of draconian enforcement of these unlawful and exclusionary policies," reads the statement from Community Power Collective, East LA Community Corporation, and Inclusive Action for the City.

If the future ordinance is approved by the council, officials say the special vending zone pilot program could pave the way for similar expansions of street vending in other areas of the city, such as around LA Live, where vending is currently banned.

City News Service contributed to this report.