Thieves have been terrorizing food truck operators and street vendors in California, demanding at gunpoint they hand over their day’s earnings and knowing it’s unlikely they’ll be reported or prosecuted for the hold-ups.
Some vendors, who operate in the gray areas of the law and set up shop without official permits and licenses, have been sitting ducks for criminals looking to make a quick buck. They are often too scared to go to work but can’t afford to stay home, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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“It’s making me rethink selling food,” Gladys Lopez, a 51-year-old carne asada vendor in the Westlake area, told the outlet. Lopez needs the money she makes for rent and other necessities, even if that means putting herself in danger day after day.
In Los Angeles, food truck operators are required to have the proper city and county permits, but the makeshift sidewalk stands that have exploded in popularity over the past few years are often overlooked. Laws in California have decriminalized street vending but the problem is that many are run by immigrants, some illegal, and they are less likely to report an incident to the authorities.
This summer, there have been an alarming number of cases where food stand workers were targeted by armed robbers. In late May and early June, Tacos Los Chemas and four food stands nearby in South Los Angeles were hit.
Sal Martinez, the owner of Tacos Los Chemas, said he was cleaning up his kitchen around midnight when two men in hooded sweatshirts approached his truck. At first, he thought they were looking for a late-night snack but quickly realized the severity of the situation when he saw one of the men hold a gun up to the back of a taco maker’s head.
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“Give me all your money or I’ll kill your friend,” the gun-wielding assailant told Martinez, who handed over the day’s earnings.
On July 9, four more vendors in the area were held up in less than an hour by three young men dressed in dark hooded sweatshirts. Another string of attacks took place on Aug. 16, when six taco and street food stands were robbed as they were closing up in Hollywood, Echo Park, and downtown Los Angeles. The group worked in teams of two to four and stole cash and cellphones, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Rudy Espinoza, executive director of the advocacy group Inclusive Action for the City, said food trucks and street vendors are easier targets than traditional restaurants.
“There’s informality with what they’re doing, and it exposes them to people mistreating them,” he said. “Food trucks and street vendors operate in the open-air economy, in this gray, informal space, and I think historically our city hasn’t welcomed or taken care of these entrepreneurs.”
While the LAPD has shifted detectives from its Robbery Homicide Division to look into the wave of attacks that Deputy Chief Kris Pitcher described as an “emerging crime trend,” community members such as Edin Alex Enamorado and Fernando Gonzalez are coming to the aid of vulnerable businesses.
Enamorado, the former regional field director of the Central Coast for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign, told the Los Angeles Times he felt “outsmarted” by the crooks and had been working elsewhere when they hit Tacos Los Chemas. He and Gonzalez have been offering their security services for free since 2021.
His Instagram page, which has 231,000 followers, has multiple videos of him talking about the crimes and gives updated information on whether alleged perpetrators were brought to justice as well as other community news. He and Gonzales have also created a WhatsApp group chat that allows vendors to report suspicious individuals as well as crimes that they perhaps wouldn’t otherwise.
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The problem isn’t only in Los Angeles.
Robberies against street vendors have been on the rise in Portland, Oregon, as well as in Chicago, where in May, nine food trucks and street vendors were attacked in a single morning.
