Gregg Kettles's blog

Last night I attended a community forum put on by a group of taco truck operators in East Los Angeles. The group calls itself "La Asociación de Loncheros L.A. Familia Unida de CA." The forum was part food festival. Free fare was reason enough to come. I helped myself to seafood tostadas served up by "Mariscos Coliman," a truck that regularly does business on East Manchester between Juniper and Alameda, in an unincorporated part of LA county just west of South Gate. With plenty of lime juice, green onion, and just the right amount of tomatillo sauce, the tostadas were delicious.

The forum was about more than just giving away food. It was also about raising awareness of the positive contribution taco trucks make to our community and others across the state of California. Earlier this year, the County of Los Angeles tried to implement a new ordinance tough prohibitions against the operation of taco trucks. Fortunately, when the county sought to enforce it, the superior court of Los Angeles held the prohibitory ordinance to be invalid. One hopes that the County has seen the light and will let the trucks operate in peace, but one can't rely on hope alone.

Anyone can sell. You don't need to have a fancy cart and shrink wrapped goods to sell things outside. Nor do you need training in business or public safety. Turns out that all you need is a drive way and some things you no longer need.

With a 20 year boom having come to an end, folks everywhere are looking for quick ways to earn some extra cash. Having gorged ourselves on consumer goods for years, people are now looking to unload them. As I told New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown, "This is the perfect storm for garage sales." Ms. Brown wrote an article about the garage sale boom that appeared in the New York Times on Saturday. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/us/25garage.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=garage&st=cse&oref=slogin

Garage sales are another example of open air commerce. Such sales help demonstrate the virtues of selling things outside. Homeowners all over the country are avoiding middle men such as the pawn shop and second hand store and selling things themselves from their own property. The cost savings are passed on to thrifty consumers. It's a win-win for buyers and sellers alike.

Recently the ACLU announced the settlement of a dispute involving day laborers in the Orange County, California community of Lake Forest. That community had attempted, with the assistance of county law enforcement, to drastically to limit the ability of day laborers to solicit work on public sidewalks. Day laborers there are right to be encouraged by the settlement of their lawsuit, but celebration may be premature. While the settlement affirms laborer’s 1st Amendment right to solicit work from sidewalks, it also leaves county defendants with full authority to enforce laws regulating conduct, including those prohibiting jaywalking, double parking, and littering.

It remains to be seen whether Lake Forest will attempt to find another way to exclude day laborers, such as by simply lengthening the list of laws “regulating conduct.” This has been a favorite tactic of other U.S. communities who are hostile to street side solicitation by day workers. The City of Orange earlier this year made it illegal to solicit for work from sidewalks next to streets without parking lanes, medians or driveways on a public right of way. Marietta, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, put the squeeze on day labor employers, changing the traffic rules to prohibit stopping a vehicle where day laborers congregate. These tactics are of questionable legality. They are certainly bad policy.

About 3 weeks ago I blogged about a Taco Truck Triumph, where an LA county ordinance imposing prohibitions on taco truck operations was held to be invalid. http://www.openair.org/node/439. Not content to let justice prevail, the County made a motion for reconsideration. In support of its motion, the County submitted declarations from sheriff deputies purporting to justify the prohibitions on taco trucks. It was not clear that the declarations would even be considered by the court. The ordinance had been invalidated on a demurrer. Demurrers are generally based only on legal pleadings and the laws themselves. Generally they do not involve consideration of declarations, affidavits, or other evidence.

Today hearing was heard on the County's motion for reconsideration. Attorney for the taco truck operators, Phillip Greenwald, moved to strike the deputies' declarations, citing well-settled authority that evidence is not to be considered on a demurrer. While the court acknowledged this general practice, it decided to deny the motion to strike and admit the deputies' declarations.

In April I blogged about an attempt by Los Angeles County to lower the boom on taco truck operators by making them liable for fines up to $1000 for staying in any one spot for more than a hour. http://openair.org/node/416

This week a Los Angeles Superior Court judge invalidated the County's ordinance, finding it unconstitutionally vague. This is not the first time that an ordinance purporting to regulate conduct in public space has been held void for vagueness. In 1972 a Jacksonville, Florida vagrancy ordinance was held to be unconstitutionally vague by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville. That city's vagrancy ordinance provided: