The City Council Tuesday delayed a vote for the third time on amending an ordinance to crack down on food truck operators who regularly park illegally in residential areas and “eat” the cost of the ticket as part their overhead.
City Councilman Mike Bonin, who introduced the motion, declined to comment or explain the delay. A spokesman for City Attorney Mike Feuer also declined to comment.
Matt Geller, CEO of the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association, said the delay might be due to objections his organization has raised over the legality of amending the ordinance in question.
The motion to amend the ordinance sailed through the Transportation Committee, which Bonin chairs, without any objections, but Geller said he was unaware the meeting was going on.
“It’s been a little weird. Honestly, when I’ve worked on other things with the city they keep me informed of meetings, they invite me to Transportation Committee hearings, and this is one of those things that I don’t think the city has been very pro-active on reaching out to the mobile food truck industry,” Geller said.
Food trucks are limited to parking in residential neighborhoods for only 30 minutes, but current city law only allows one ticket to be issued per day for a violation. The proposed amended ordinance — which only applies to food trucks — would create escalated penalties for each 30-minute increment during a parking violation in a residential area.
Bonin, who chairs the Transportation Committee, said the idea for the ordinance grew out of complaints that food truck operators in the Brentwood area were illegally parking and refusing to move.
Bonin, whose district includes Brentwood, said the trucks were becoming a safety hazard in some areas, including the intersection of Bundy Drive and Shetland Lane, where several serious auto collisions have occurred.
In January, Bonin explained why he was raising the issue and seeking to amend the ordinance.
“We have a system now that hasn’t been particularly effective at addressing the problem of some of these vehicles parking sometimes in very difficult places at key intersections that are creating a public safety problem. And part of the problem is that DOT’s practice and habit is to issue one $73 ticket,” Bonin said in January. “And to most folks, these things are very profitable, particularly on the upper scale, and they just eat that $73 cost as part of doing business.”
However, Geller pointed out that the existing ordinance the council is seeking to amend, 80.73 (b) 2. F, was declared unconstitutional by the Superior Court in 2009, and the same year Chief William Bratton, who was head of the police department at the time, sent out a memo telling officers not to enforce 80.73 (b) 2. F due to the court’s ruling.
“The ordinance was struck down by courts. For some reason they didn’t know that,” Geller said.
Geller also said the amended ordinance does not address the main issue, which is public safety, because it would not prevent another food truck from immediately taking another’s place, or for a non-food truck from parking there, so the safety hazard could remain.
“There is no rational relationship to what they are trying to achieve from a public safety standpoint. They’re saying they don’t want a truck there, but it’s OK for a truck to be there all day as long as it is not the same truck,” Geller said.
Geller also said his organization would bring legal action against the city if it amended the ordinance as it is currently written, and also said he is concerned about safety issues.
“I don’t want to sue the city of L.A., I want to help the city of L.A. If L.A. is serious about this problem, which happens to be in Brentwood, they should have height limitations (for trucks) and have graduating fines for height limitations,” Geller said.
“Because what they are saying is, sight lines are being blocked by the food trucks. Well yeah, then they are being blocked by a FedEx truck or a giant RV or whatever it is, so you are addressing the sight line problem by just blocking food trucks and that doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
–City News Service