What's at stake?
Advocates said they were surprised to see Councilmember Miguel Arias changing a new ordinance regulating street vendors in Fresno.
The Fresno City Council on Thursday moved forward with amending a city ordinance to begin issuing fines for Tower District street vendors.
The original ordinance, which the council approved in December, only permitted fines for Tower District street vendors who had violated two prior city policies. But the amendment now opens up fines for any vendor in Tower who doesn’t follow city code or the new ordinance.
Councilmember Miguel Arias brought forward the amendment after going on two police ride-alongs at night and seeing multiple vendors violating city code.
“The vendors that we’re dealing with in Tower — we’ve been communicating with them every week around what the rules are, and even giving them warnings,” Arias told Fresnoland.
Arias said the intent of the amendment to the ordinance is to stop vendors from keeping people in the streets of the Tower District after bars and restaurants close after last call.
“Our goal is to clear out the vendors prior to closing the establishments, so that patrons can just get in their cars and go home, or take their ridesharing and go home,” Arias said.
Arias’ amendment to the policy surprised advocates, as the Mobile Food Vendors Associations and Cultiva La Salud both wrote in opposition to it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised that it caught them by surprise,” Arias said, “because they’re not the folks who are the problem or the ones that we’ve been dealing with in Tower.”
He noted that the nighttime vendors he is trying to hold accountable have been repeatedly warned about code violations, including blocking sidewalks with tables and chairs, playing loud music on speakers outside and cooking next to buildings — which he said is a potential fire hazard.
Ariana Martinez-Lott, a community organizer, told Fresnoland that the City Council changing the ordinance to expand who could be fined does not bode well for community trust. She said that’s especially the case since the city has yet to follow through on providing educational workshops for sidewalk vendors.
“They (vendors) got that commitment from the councilmembers,” Martinez-Lott told Fresnoland. “That they would do a very robust education window from January through June. Unfortunately, there has yet to be one single workshop.”
Arias said he believes workshops for vendors are planned, but said he didn’t know exact dates. Arias added that there has been education, in the form of police officers telling street vendors they’re in violation of city code.
“The education has commenced, but we have not seen the peak of education yet,” Arias said.
Martinez-Lott said citations and other material handed to street vendors aren’t translated. Arias acknowledged that, too.
“We’re pretty close to having all the material translated in multiple languages,” Arias said.
Martinez-Lott said that the city needs to follow through on their commitments to food vendors, and that includes robust in-person workshops. There’s no version of education that doesn’t include those workshops, she said.
“The city is already breaking trust with our street vending community by circumventing some of these key pieces that (vendors and advocates) fought for,” Martinez-Lott said.
Smoke shop drama
For several hours, the Fresno City Council debated a proposed ordinance that would create a new permitting process for smoke shops, applicable to new as well as existing ones in Fresno.
The proposal ended up failing in a 3-3 vote. The council’s vacant district 5 seat could’ve swayed the outcome Thursday if it was filled. The last day for District 5 residents to select their new councilmember is Tuesday, March 18.
At the March 13 meeting, councilmembers agreed to comply with an August court order that effectively reversed exemptions that city officials gave developers regarding traffic, air quality and water impacts of new developments.
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