L.A. policemen order food to go.

L.A. policemen order food to go

Earl Williams smelled an ambush last week as he searched the gritty, crime-ridden corner near Wilshire Boulevard and Little Street for clues. With 30 years of streets smarts under his belt and Cherokee blood coursing through his veins, the 57-year-old Alabama native was certain "something" was going to go down.

But the senses of the rotund, gregarious Williams were off. The bust we was hoping to document never happened.

Williams wasn't a cop hunting for drug deals, some of which were transpiring within arms length, or a private detective following up on a suspicious insurance claim. He is the field general for Cater Craft Foods Inc., one of the area's biggest catering truck outfits that is embroiled in a nasty dispute that has the city and some of the 2,000 or so mobile eateries pitted against each other.

Williams says its a vendetta. City officials say the trucks - pejoratively referred to as "roach coaches" - need to be regulated. The Los Angeles Police Department, for its part, claims they are simply enforcing the law.

Clearly, though, something strange is happening. Are the catering trucks an eyesore, a relic of a bygone industrial era? Or are they a provider of inexpensive, fast food, destined to survive in an age of tofu and high-fiber diets?

In the last seven weeks, three Cater Craft drivers have been arrested 15 times for minor parking violations. As Williams tells it, the arrests are part of a deliberate campaign directed from City Hall to drive the catering trucks off Wilshire Boulevard and other major city thoroughfares. He suspects some powerful local politicians, led by City Council President John Ferraro, are pressuring the police to crack down on the catering trucks so restaurant owners can chew out a profit during these economically lean times.

"These lunch trucks are part of the city, but the police department wants to kick our butt out of here. They are looking for anything to nail us," Williams snorts, a defiant smile forming on his lips. "I say lets shut down the trucks for a week and then see where the people eat. And yes, I feel like I am taking on the police department."

Two weeks ago, in front of a startled throng of office workers gathering for lunch on Mid-Wilshire near the Ambassador Hotel, the police arrested Gevork Blikian, a Russian emigre who owns and operates his own truck and eeks out about $400 to $500 a day in business.

Gevork was arrested and taken to the Rampart police station for refusing to move his truck after being cited for minor parking violation.

The day before Blikian was arrested, he was cited by police because his truck was roughly one-and-a-half feet over the parking stripe. That night Williams helped Blikian "move the bumper of the truck back," shortening it by two feet.

It didn't work.

"The police came back and arrested me the next day," Blikian recalls, his voice choked with emotion. "They said I was sticking two inches into the red. They put the handcuffs on me in front of my customers and took me away. In 38 years, I've never felt handcuffs. I've lived in the United States for 23 years. We were very happy until this happened. Now my little girl ask me (sic) if I'm going to jail."

This is not the first time the city and catering trucks have collided head on, nor it will it be the last.

Eleven years ago a California Superior Court ruled, on appeal, that a Los Angeles law forbidding catering trucks from parking within 100 feet of restaurants was unconstitutional. The city was handed another setback in 1985, when state Assemblywoman Gwen Moore sponsored legislation scuttling city efforts to prevent commercial vehicles from parking on city streets, enabling catering trucks to operate where they once couldn't: the Central Business District.

Now the city is cutting a deal, proposing Los Angeles' first catering truck policy after months of proposal and counterproposal, political balancing acts and pleas from citizen groups and catering companies.

Councilmen Richard Alatorre, chairman of the council's Public Works Committee, shepherded a plan that he says is politically workable - and necessary. A police sweep of 21 catering trucks in the San Fernando Valley revealed 20 drivers without health permits, only three with accident insurance and many without a drivers license on them. Another probe involving 45 catering trucks in south Los Angeles showed that 95 percent had no health permits, registrations, business and occupational licenses.

Under the new policy, police would create a permit system for the catering trucks and will be able to site operators for not having county health permits. The trucks, which can cost between $40,000 to $70,000 apiece, would be required to install a beeper notifying pedestrians it is backing up.

Politics are also impacting the trucks, many of them high-tech affairs with multiple sinks, electronic grills and sophisticated ventilation systems.

Because of city concessionaires near various recreational areas, the trucks would not be allowed to do business within 200 feet of some city parks, nor within 500 feet of a school.

But, in a major victory for catering truck operators, a proposal by Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores that would have limited the trucks to one hour stops on each streets was scrapped.

"Some council members originally wanted to put the catering trucks out of business," says Alatorre, who represents blue-collar sections of Los Angeles. "Unlike some, I don't think the trucks are a problem in the affluent areas. Where you find them is in working class areas, where people make a manual living."

The full City Council will vote on the law - essentially amendments to existing city laws - in the next few weeks. Still, the hotly competitive industry will have more to worry about than subtle changes in the American diet. Councilman Marvin Braude has a rival proposal that would resurrect the one-hour per stop law originally introduced by Flores.

"People are concerned about the new laws," says Kelly Ramirez, executive director of Buena Park-based Industrial Caterers Association. "We have worked hard to change the reputation of the trucks."

Councilman Ferraro's field deputy, Tom LaBonge, says it is not City Hall's intention to root out the catering trucks. LaBonge says some city officials want to force catering truck operators back to where they established their trade: industrial areas and construction sites.

"They've done a tremendous job there," LaBonge said. "They were the first food delivered on any plot of land. But is there place for them in front of City Hall or a downtown office building?"

Ferraro, according to LaBonge, is worried that the "proliferation of trucks in Los Angeles" will put the corner fast-food outlet or confection shop out of business, forcing office tenants to question the attractiveness of their surroundings.

Williams says he thinks the councilman's motives are more insidious. He claims Ferraro told him he "didn't want any catering trucks" on big thoroughfares like Wilshire Boulevard and Sixth Street. "The bottom line is that he (Ferraro) doesn't like the way the trucks look and doesn't think we pay taxes, even though we do. The great governing fathers of the city don't won't to clutter up the streets of Los Angeles like New York City."

Others in the catering biz think the drivers, the majority of whom are Hispanic, lack the political clout of established restaurants, which have the California Restaurant Association lobbying for them at City Hall.

But not all caterers think alike. Lewis Weitzberg, owner of A La Carte Catering, which leases out 100 trucks, says relations with the council have been mended.

"As long as you are legally parked, everything is OK," Whitezburg quips.

Other truck owners say increased police action against companies like Cater Craft is the result of friendships between restaurant owners and local policeman. Notes John Hopwood, vice president of Avalon Foods, "Some of the restaurant owners like to bitch because sometimes we serve food quicker and better than they do."

Some, though, say many of the trucks act like outlaws, hunkering down in one location for hours by "feeding the meter."

"Everybody should play by the same rules," Hopwood adds.

While many of the caterers say regulation is necessary for the restaurants on wheels, others are worried about the private property limit.

"The police seem to be going after what we call the taco trucks, those that stay in one place for a long period of time," says Bob Jordan of Triangle Catering. "I don't mind some of the new regulations, but I don't think the city has a right to come in and say you can't stay on private property for more than one hour."

Says Hopwood, whose company leases out 100 trucks to independent drivers, "We don't have much problem with the police, but I know some that do, especially downtown."

But Williams says city law or not, he will make sure the police don't hassle his "boys." He'll continue going to locations, tape recorder in hand, when he anticipates his drivers will get into trouble over parking violations.

"I've been in this business when the trucks used to charge 13 cents for a sandwich." Williams remarks. "The trucks are part of Los Angeles' history and I'll protect the drivers so they can make a living."

Taking a final look around, eying a patrol car and a "scuffle that never materialized," Williams concludes, "Everyone has a right to make a fair and legal living. That is what this country is about."

PHOTO : It's getting hot in the kitchen: Catering truck operators attend to a controversial business

PHOTO : Cracking down: An L.A. police officer tickets catering truck operator Gevork Blikian

PHOTO : Pushing the limit: After being ticketed for a parking violation Gevork Blikian shortened the bumper on his catering truck by one-and-a-half feet so the vehicle could legally fit within city parking spaces. Yet, Blikian was arrested the next day for being `two inches' into a red zone