Street Vendors

Crouched on a gritty stretch of sidewalk along 6th Street with dozens of Spanish-language music cassettes at his feet, a 34-year-old street vendor named Diego spoke with a voice full of fear--fear of both the gang members who regularly shake him down, and of the police officers who had just started patrolling this weekend to protect him from the gangs. "They might be watching us right now," he said nervously of the 18th Street gang members who on most Sundays collect $10 in protection money from him, out of the roughly $40 that he takes in daily.

It's no mystery why the Chinese hate the chengguan . Think of them as thuggish meter maids or health inspectors with batons. Hardly a week goes by without a new controversy involving the municipal officers, a rung below the police, beating an unlicensed hawker or smashing a street vendor's stand. Their latest handiwork? A fiery three-day riot last month involving thousands in the southern township of Xintang that was sparked when chengguan reportedly beat a pregnant roadside stall owner.

His friends believed that Raul O. Martinez had lost his mind. Martinez had a plan to sell soft-shell tacos out of a renovated ice cream truck on the streets of East Los Angeles. "How will you sell those kinds of tacos?" he was asked. Despite the skepticism, Martinez, his wife and father at his side, parked the truck next to an East Los Angeles bar on a summer night in 1974. Martinez sold $70 worth of tacos that first night and soon afterward was selling $150 an evening.

In South Korea, they're known as "errand men": hired street muscle who play often-violent mercenary roles in property disputes that law enforcement agencies refuse to handle. Their ranks are filled by physically fit young men who, critics allege, lurk in the gray area of the law, using violence and intimidation to assert the will of clients such as landlords, businessmen and even the government . A Seoul government ward office recently has resorted to using yongyeok , errand men, to chase away illegal street vendors from a popular tourist district.

After he was laid off last fall from his job driving a delivery truck, Ricardo Lara couldn't find another full-time position that would pay the bills. So he went into business for himself driving an ice cream truck. At first, he was making as much money peddling Heath bars, Bomb Pops and ice cream sandwiches as he did at his old job. But that didn't last. As the economy melted down, so did sales, despite his seven-day workweek plying the streets of South Los Angeles.

After reading "Illegal Street Vendors Targeted in Boyle Heights" (Nov. 13), I believe the "enemy" is not the vendor "wearing a red apron, armed with kitchen knives, tortillas and a slab of beef on a spit"; the enemy is the city government that doesn't uphold local, state and federal laws. The "battle" is not a "fight against the guerrilla street vendors," the war is battling the city of Los Angeles to enforce its own laws in Boyle Heights. I am third-generation born and raised in Boyle Heights, and I continue to live and work in the community.

I was quite concerned about the statement by Javier Rodriguez (Voices, Feb. 26). He likened eating tacos prepared on the street to those prepared at Taco Bell or Jack in the Box. Believe me, there is no comparison. These restaurants can serve freshly prepared tacos because they follow the health code, and we can be reasonably sure we will not get sick eating there. The same cannot be said for eating food prepared on the street. Street vendors should be held to the same health code compliance as those who run restaurants.

I read with outrage the article on legalizing street vending. ("Pushcart Power," July 25). Everything about street vending is illegal, from the people who do it to the carts they do it from. Aren't tax-paying citizens getting a little sick of this glorification of people who laugh in the face of the law and continue to get away with it? A full-color cover picture of a smiling perpetrator reminds me of all the press coverage and fame accorded taggers. Enough! VIRGINIA JACKS Echo Park

Some wore bandanas over their faces, while others wore the hammer and sickle on their shirts. They shouted "assassins" through bullhorns and passed out political pamphlets. But among the roughly 200 demonstrators who descended on Westlake on Saturday to protest the fatal Sept. 5 police shooting of Guatemalan immigrant Manuel Jamines were many area residents, day laborers, construction workers and street vendors who said they came for more personal reasons. "I came to support a friend, because I thought he should have justice," said Juan Lorenzo Lopez, 41, a fellow Guatemalan immigrant.

A Westlake resident who said she witnessed the fatal shooting of a Guatemalan day laborer by a Los Angeles police officer said Thursday that she saw no knife in the man's hands, contradicting the Police Department's account. "He had nothing in his hands," said Ana, who did not give her last name and asked that her face be obscured in photos and on television because she feared being harassed by the police. "At the moment when the police were shooting, he had nothing. " Ana said she was across the street Sunday afternoon when bicycle officers with the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division approached 37-year-old Manuel Jamines, who police said was wielding a knife and threatening people in the crowded shopping district.

Two 18th Street gang members convicted of an infant's murder almost three years ago near MacArthur Park and the attempted murder of a street vendor who refused to pay street "taxes" to the gang were sentenced Friday to life in prison. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler sentenced Juan Pablo Murillo, 34, who was second in command of the gang, to life without possibility of parole plus 114 years to life in prison, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Victor Avila. Guadalupe Torres Rangel, 42, an associate, also was sentenced to life without possibility of parole plus 107 years to life in prison.

Dare to buy red roses or a newspaper from a street vendor, and soon you could be breaking the law. At least in Oakland Park, Fla. Citing traffic safety concerns, officials in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of 42,000 tentatively approved an ordinance targeting not only panhandlers and peddlers, but the people who give to them or buy something from them. Under the ordinance initially passed last month, anyone who responds to a beggar with money or any "article of value" or buys flowers or a newspaper from someone on the street would face a fine of $50 to $100 and as many as 90 days in jail.

Two men suspected of robbing a street vendor selling Valentine's Day gift baskets died Sunday morning when their car crashed into a parked vehicle during a brief police pursuit south of downtown Los Angeles, authorities said. The incident began about 4:30 a.m., when two men allegedly stole merchandise from a vendor set up at San Pedro Street and Adams Boulevard. Officers responded to a 911 call, and the suspects' Nissan sped away, soon crashing near Central Avenue and 27th Street.

Rafael Acosta, the peddler-turned-politico whose maneuverings have captivated Mexico City for months, quit as president of its most populous borough Thursday amid allegations that he filed a false birth certificate when he ran. Acosta, a leftist street vendor who goes by "Juanito," delivered his resignation after foes threatened to seek prosecution on charges that his candidacy papers were falsified. Acosta this week gave reporters conflicting birth dates, first saying he was born in 1958, then 1960.

One of Mexico's most flamboyant political figures, the headband-sporting street vendor known as Juanito, revived a circus-like power struggle Monday by saying he would like to govern the capital's largest borough after all. Juanito, whose real name is Rafael Acosta, threw Mexico City into a fresh tizzy when he showed up to work as delegado , a position akin to mayor, of the working-class Iztapalapa borough after a two-month leave of absence....

El Churrero -- the Churro Man -- sidesteps tamale carts, squeezes between bumpers and beggars, working 24 lanes of idling vehicles. He walks through shimmering exhaust clouds, hawking sombreros teetering atop his head and sweets held aloft in a blue basket. His churros are warm and moist. "Churros here," he yells. "If they're not hot, you don't pay." Deciderio Mauricio Cantera first waded into the sea of traffic at the gateway to California in 1968 and set eyes on the bored and the hungry as they waited, fidgeted and honked, inching toward the San Ysidro Port of Entry.