‘This is going to be bad.’ Fresno city launches new rules over ‘uptick’ in street vendors

Jaime Gómez parks his mobile hot dog cart on Olive Avenue as he prepares to sell bacon-wrapped dogs to visitors of Fresno’s arts and culture district. He’s the only mobile food vendor in sight on this Wednesday night, but more will come after 9 p.m. or so, he says.

Even in triple-digit heat, Gomez is expecting a late and busy night, he told The Bee, because people will be hungry after drinking and dancing at nearby Tower District bars and nightclubs. That’s especially true on the weekends, he says.

“By 1:30 a.m.,” he says in Spanish, “the sidewalks are full” with street vendors and customers buying tacos, hot dogs and other late night food.

The surge in vendors might be a good economic sign for Fresno, but not everyone is pleased. Some nearby residents and business owners say the vendors at times leave trash in the area or don’t always have proper health permits.

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The Fresno City Council responded by approving a series of pilot regulations this week that restricts where vendors can set up carts and imposes a 1:30 am curfew on vendor sales, just when business gets really good, Gomez says. He thinks it would be better if sidewalk vendors could sell until 2:00 a.m. and then leave by 2:30 a.m.

“This is going to be bad,” he said, “we won’t be able to sell.”

Gómez used to work as an Uber driver, but he switched to food vending in the evenings when he noticed more vendors in the Tower District, post-Covid, as people started to venture out for fun. He used to operate his cart across town by the Walmart at Cedar and Shields avenues, but business is better in the arts district, he says, where “everyone wants to work.”

Council Vice President Annalisa Perea and Miguel Arias, whose districts include the Tower District, said the regulations are needed because they’ve received multiple complaints from the neighborhood.

Another goal of the pilot, Arias and Perea said, is to improve overall safety in the Tower District: There have been 14 violent incidents – shootings, stabbings and robberies – in the last 12 months in the district between 1:30 to 4 a.m. At least one of the shootings started after a fight at a taco stand, Perea said.

Local city council members think the uptick in sidewalk street vendors throughout Fresno, but especially in the Tower District, is driven by a mix of relaxed state laws, inflation pushing people to find extra sources of income and increasing acceptance of street vendors in Fresno driven by social media.

Arias said “the biggest driver” is a new state law that simplifies rules for street vendors to obtain health permits.

New rules for Fresno’s Tower District sidewalk vendors

Effective Aug. 1, sidewalk vendors located in the Tower District business corridor, defined as specifically situated south of McKinley, west of Blackstone, north of Belmont, and east of Palm avenues, must comply with the following rules:

• Must have their city business license, county health permit, as well as any other relevant state licenses

• Must sell between the hours of 5 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. and must vacate the area by 2 a.m.

• Must clean trash and keep area clean within 10-foot radius

• Prohibited from operating within 100 feet of residences

• Prohibited from operating within 50 feet of an entrance or exit from any business with an operational kitchen

• Prohibited from operating within 10 feet of another sidewalk vendor

• Prohibited from operating within 18 inches of the sidewalk curb

• Prohibited from anywhere that would impede pedestrian access in designated areas

• Prohibited from selling during a special event, such as the weekly farmer’s market in Tower on Thursdays

Any vendor that violates these rules will be subject to the following penalties:

• Initial violation: verbal warning

• Second violation: $100 fine within year of initial violation

• Third violation: $250 fine within year of initial violation

• Additional violations: $500 fine within year of initial violation

The resolution for the 90-day pilot project was approved in a 7-0 vote on the consent agenda on Thursday.

Arias said the council will evaluate the pilot after 30 and 60 days to see what adjustments might need to be made. They’re also working with the Fresno Mobile Vendors Association for feedback on the pilot.

The goal isn’t to discourage street vendors, Perea said. “These are entrepreneurs.”

Perea’s office and the city’s finance department conduct educational outreach campaigns to show vendors how to get a business license and register for health permits.

“While we’re adding regulations,” she said, “we don’t want it to be at the detriment of a vendor needing to stop their business.”

What’s causing the ‘uptick’ Fresno street vendors?

A few weeks ago, Hugo Valdez, 26, brought a small stove and a generator to the intersection of Broadway and Olive Avenues to make and sell tacos outside of Splash nightclub.

He helps his mom run a taco truck, he said in an interview with The Bee last Wednesday. He thought the Tower District would be a good place to make money, so he could save up to pay for the licenses and permits for her business. He purchased the taco truck out of state, but it didn’t pass the permits here in California, he said.

“There’s a couple thousand dollars we still gotta put in (the truck),” he said. He hopes he can get the permits soon and plans to continue selling in the Tower area.

He’s another of the dozen or so vendors, like Gómez, selling in Tower District.

Frank Delgado, marketing director for Lucy’s Lounge on Olive Avenue, said in an interview with The Bee on Thursday that the “huge uptick” of vendors all happened “after COVID.”

“Before,” he said, “there were maybe three.”

The problem in Delgado’s view isn’t the presence of vendors – he enjoys the occasional hot dog from Gómez’s stand – but rather the lack of regulations on vendors and customers who don’t always “respect” the community. Some customers coming out of bars, he said, might order tacos, walk into nearby residential areas, then “end up lighting up a joint … and then they leave their trash there.”

City leaders say in other instances, street vendors have dumped used oil on sidewalks or have left trash on the sidewalks or in public receptacles.

But other vendors, Delgado said, go “above and beyond” to keep the sidewalks clean. “They literally sweep the sidewalk when they’re done,” he said, “I’ve seen them.”

Ultimately, Delgado thinks most of the vendors are “honest entrepreneurs” trying to survive.

“I can almost guarantee,” he said, “all of those people are buying diapers for somebody.”