The City Council has toughened its vending ordinance by requiring mobile merchants to move their vehicles every half hour, pick up trash left behind by customers and sell nothing on Sundays.
The ordinance also restricts hours during which vendors can operate and provides progressively harsher penalties to those who violate it repeatedly.
The council on Tuesday voted 4 to 0 to approve the changes. Councilman Jeff Vasquez was absent.
The vendor ordinance was revised in response to complaints about produce trucks and other peddlers in two large condominium complexes, Capistrano Villas and Casa Capistrano.
Despite taking a stronger position on regulating vendors, the council softened the city's stance in one minor way by asking the city staff to revise the part of the city code that forbids ice cream trucks from playing music over loudspeakers. Council members said the tunes--at a reasonable volume--should be allowed as a traditional slice of community life.
