PUSHED TO THE LIMIT STREET VENDING, THOUGH ILLEGAL, IS A BOOMING INDUSTRY.

Byline: Rachel Uranga Staff Writer

PACOIMA - Like thousands of vendors working the streets of Los Angeles, Margarita Perez depends on the $50 a day she earns selling corn on the cob.

Every day, she pushes a hand cart from the converted garage she shares with her husband and sister-in-law to a park in Pacoima, where she helps pay the rent by selling home-roasted corn for $1 apiece.

``We don't want to bother people. We are only doing this out of necessity, to survive,'' said Perez, 49.

Although street vending is illegal in Los Angeles, it's a booming industry in every corner of the city. Officials estimate there are thousands of flower peddlers, fruit hawkers and push-cart vendors working the streets, although no one really knows for sure.

City officials acknowledge that illegal vendors are a growing problem, posing health risks, taking away customers from legitimate businesses and impacting the neighborhood's quality of life.

But they also say they don't have the money, manpower or political will to enforce the ban against unlicensed peddlers or to aggressively prosecute offenders.

And despite expectations from many quarters that the federal government should deal with the problem by deporting undocumented workers, immigration officials say they don't take action unless they are given specific information that a person is in the United States illegally.

``The reality is that street vending will always be here,'' said David Diaz, a professor of urban studies at California State University, Northridge. ``The reason why it thrives is that the community they are in supports them economically.''

A decade ago, the city launched an effort - largely unsuccessful - to control the boom of unlicensed street vendors by creating vending districts throughout the city.

Peddlers in the San Fernando Valley tried for six years to set up a district in Pacoima, but were stymied by a lack of money, neighborhood opposition and weak commitments from local politicians.

The only district to survive is in MacArthur Park, just east of downtown. There, in 2000, the city constructed more than a dozen wood- paneled, stationary vending carts and allocated $250,000 in federal money for four years, in hopes of creating a self-sustaining program.

Nearly a dozen sellers signed up, selling a menu of tamales representing every corner of Mexico and Central America.

But many could not afford the S1,460 fee for a standing cart. Others were forced out because of competition by illegal push-cart vendors.

``It's just been a real struggle,'' said Cliff Weiss, deputy director with the city's Community Development Department, which oversees the district.

``The only way to make any vending district successful is to have a larger commitment by the enforcement arm of the city and county, to cut down on illegal competition. It's just not a priority.''

Trying to steer illegal vendors from the street, the city offers microlending programs that encourage sellers to start legitimate businesses. But the effort has failed to stem the growth of vendors.

Experts say Los Angeles should look to programs in other cities that have legalized vending, resulting in fewer health violations and improving relationships among neighbors.

In neighboring Pasadena, for instance, the city uses street vendors to get out public service messages to the Latino community. And health violations have dropped more than 80 percent in Santa Ana, where a 10- year-old program requires vendors to be licensed and undergo a background check.

Although Los Angeles' ordinances provide for a $1,000 fine and/or six months in jail for those convicted of street vending, only a handful of cases are ever prosecuted, officials said.

Enforcement typically falls to the LAPD's senior lead officers, who are already overwhelmed with other tasks of community-based policing. It can take hours to cite a single vendor - transporting them to the station and trying to verify their identity.

``It's just getting worse and our hands our tied,'' said Julian Almaraz, a community police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. ``I run them off and I tell them to leave but they come back.''

The effort is so ineffective the officers resort to monthly sweeps with representatives from the City Attorney's Office, Department of Building and Safety and county Department of Health Services.

They target homes where push-cart foods are made, shutting down operations where tamales are cooked on a makeshift stove in the bathtub, lead vats are used for cooking, and hot dogs and mayonnaise used for corn are left at room temperature for days.

In the one-year period ending last June 30, health officials conducted 172 sweeps, confiscating 4,403 pieces of vending equipment in 88 municipalities, including Los Angeles.

``It's only a small dent, a very small dent, but that's the manpower that we have,'' said Martha Gutierrez, a neighborhood prosecutor with the City Attorney's Office.

Arturo Hernandez, 40, sells ``chicharrones'' or pork rinds; ``elote'' or corn in Spanish; and mangoes from a homemade cart he pushes around Pacoima for six hours a day. In the past two months, police dumped his food four times. But it doesn't stop him from returning.

``There are no other jobs out there. I have to do this,'' he said.

But many residents, while sympathetic to the economic pressures that drive street vendors, are fed up with the problems they cause.

``It's not fair; they are not accountable to the people they sell to,'' said Bonnie Bernard, owner of Flowers 4 U in Sylmar and a member of the Sylmar Neighborhood Council. ``They don't have to pay for a business license.''

Rachel Uranga, [phone]

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Although street vending is illegal in Los Angeles, it's a booming industry in every corner of the city. Vendors sell corn, fruit, vegetables, ice cream and candy. Here a customer buys some fruit from a vendor on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima on Saturday.

(2) Officials estimate there are thousands of flower peddlers, fruit hawkers and push-cart vendors in Los Angeles. Here patrons enjoy their fruit from a stand on San Fernando Road in Pacoima.

(3) Street vendors like this one in Ritchie Valens Park in Pacoima primarily go unchecked because city officials don't have the money or manpower to enforce the ban on unlicensed peddlers.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer