Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to plan a fourth vendor dispute community meeting
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – An effort to crack down on illegal street vendors in Santa Barbara led to a community meeting Monday night.
Other food vendors are set up across the City of Santa Barbara, but it is prohibited despite California's Safe Sidewalk Vending Act. It was approved in 2018 and paved the way for more permitted street vendors.
The Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce hosted a community meeting Monday night.
They spoke out against a spike in unpermitted vendors skirting the laws in Santa Barbara.
The city attorney and staff say they are going after fire code violations, but confiscating food and equipment would require storage during due process.
Council members are concerned about the health and safety of people that buy their food.
President of the Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Miguel Avila, said Santa Barbara is not the only place where he has seen vendors in the last few weeks and wants to find a solution to end this issue as soon as possible.
“I go up and down the coast, and I’ve seen outside of Santa Cruz Market in Old Town Goleta, now they’ve even gotten to Isla Vista also by the car dealers,” said Avila. “So this thing is happening pretty much everywhere and affecting our local businesses.”
The permit fee is $29, but city officials said only one offending vendor seemed interested in paying.
The city task force was formed last month after complaints found that the worst offenders are from out of town and their workers may be victims of human trafficking.
In the meeting, city officials say the public can help by buying from permitted vendors, like the food trucks at Solstice over the weekend.
What’s next? Avila said in the coming days, he and others will plan a time, date, and place for another meeting regarding this topic.
But this time, the plan is for the meeting to be in Goleta.
He said this would be the fourth meeting.
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