Street vendors have faced robberies, an online petition was started to change state laws to protect vendors. Gordon Tokumatsu reports on July 11, 2022.
Thousands of street vendors work the streets of Los Angeles county, and you may have some in your neighborhood.
But are they less safe than they've ever been?
According to new numbers, the answer is yes.
Eliu Ramirez, Long Beach street vendor, goes through his daily routine as he prepares to head out for business.
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Cooking the corn, shaving the ice and assorting the bags of chips.
He is one of ten thousand vendors working in LA county.
Most are Latino, older, working alone and often carrying cash.
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It's what makes them vulnerable to these sorts of attacks.
People cursing, hitting, destroying their property and ruining their businesses.
Eliu told our sister station, Telemundo, about two recent attacks he endured.
The first happened in May of 2021 where three people toppled his cart in broad daylight.
Since they're juveniles, aged 16, 17 and 8, he says he doesn't even know if they faced any kind of felony charges at all.
Rodriguez has started an online petition, calling for a change in state laws.
He says local police and prosecutors are not doing enough to protect the vendors and he's personally interviewed more than 500 of them.
“They end up going to court and nothing happens to the victim for the victim,” Rodriguez said.
The goal is to produce some kind of "hate crime" law to protect them.
He says the enhancements will give further protection to people who often have little recourse to recover their destroyed property or assist them with serious injuries.
On Friday, the LAPD’s 77th division tweeted out an alert saying that in that neighborhood alone, street vendor robberies have doubled since last time this year.
And citywide, they're up 20%.
