Existing law authorizes a local authority to adopt a program to regulate sidewalk vendors if the local authoritys sidewalk vending program complies with specified standards. Existing law authorizes a local authority, among other restrictions, to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of a permitted certified farmers market or a permitted swap meet.

This bill would additionally authorize a local authority to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity from operating within 250 feet of the entrances and exits of an annual fair operated by a district agricultural association, county fair, or citrus fruit fair, as described. defined, during the operating hours of the annual fair, and within 250 feet of entrances and exits of parking lots located on fairgrounds and used for parking during the operating hours of an annual fair.

Existing law authorizes a local authority to adopt a program to regulate sidewalk vendors if the local authoritys sidewalk vending program complies with specified standards. Existing law authorizes a local authority, among other restrictions, to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of a permitted certified farmers market or a permitted swap meet.

This bill would additionally authorize a local authority to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of an annual fair operated by a district agricultural association, county fair, or citrus fruit fair, as described.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Senator María Elena Durazo, Chair

2023 - 2024 Regular

Sidewalk vendors: annual fairs

Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating within 250 feet during operating hours of the entrances and exits of annual fairs and parking lots used for the fair.

Background

Police power. The California Constitution allows cities and counties to “make and enforce within its limits, all local, police, sanitary and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.”  It is from this fundamental power (commonly called the police power) that cities and counties derive their authority to regulate behavior to preserve the health, safety, and welfare of the public—including land use authority. Local agencies also use this police power to abate nuisances and protect public health, safety and welfare.

As an extension of the police power, state law lets local governments require businesses operating in their jurisdictions to obtain a license and impose related licensing fees. Local governments license businesses for lots of reasons: to identify individuals operating businesses in their jurisdictions, to ensure compliance with other local laws, to facilitate contact in case a problem arises, and to raise money to support public services that support those businesses.

Cities and counties subject businesses to a wide variety of regulations to preserve the public health and welfare, such as limitations on their hours of operation, restrictions on where various types of businesses can be located within a jurisdiction, and regulations on the type of merchandise that can be sold. These regulations intend to address concerns of local citizens about the impact of a business.

Sidewalk Vending Law. Sidewalk vendors sell goods on streets and sidewalks from carts and other non-motorized conveyances. These entrepreneurs engage in business in many cities throughout the state, where they sell food items and other merchandise. Some sidewalk vendors are stationary, while others rove from one location to another. Although there is no statewide count, according to some estimates, there are an estimated 50,000 sidewalk vendors in the City of Los Angeles alone.

There is a strong history of sidewalk vending in California. According to a 2021 California Law Review article titled Racial Justice for Street Vendors, this business practice traces back as far as the late nineteenth century, with Chinese-Americans selling vegetables and other goods in Los Angeles. Since its start, the sidewalk-vending workforce has grown to reflect the diversity of California, including many Californians of color.

Until 2019, cities and counties were able to regulate or ban sidewalk vending as they saw fit. Due to concerns that criminal citations for sidewalk vendors could enable deportation by the federal government, and to legalize the activity of sidewalk vending as a means of economic support for immigrant communities, the Legislature enacted SB 946 (Lara, 2018), which prohibits local governments from banning sidewalk vending and establishes other parameters for local ordinances.

SB 946 prohibited cities and counties from regulating sidewalk vendors except if they adopt a regulatory framework consistent with state requirements. Among other provisions, SB 946 prohibited a city or county from requiring sidewalk vendors to operate within specific parts of public right-of-way except where that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. Along those lines, cities and counties can neither restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendors, nor restrict sidewalk vendors to operate only in a designated area, unless these restrictions are directly related to health, safety or welfare concerns. Cities and counties can also prohibit sidewalk vendors near farmers markets, swap meets, and special events, and they can prohibit stationary vendors (but not roaming vendors) in certain circumstances in parks and exclusively residential zones. Cities and counties can further restrict sidewalk vending in parks if the requirements are:

• Directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns;
• Necessary to ensure the public’s use and enjoyment of natural resources and recreational opportunities;
• Necessary to prevent an undue concentration of commercial activity that unreasonably interferes with the scenic and natural character of the park; and
• Specifically prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas within the immediate vicinity of a permitted farmers’ market or swap meet during their operating hours.

One key provision of SB 946 is that cities and counties may adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending if the requirements are directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns, such as requirements to:

• Limit the hours of operation of sidewalk vendors in a manner that is not unduly restrictive;
• Maintain sanitary conditions;
• Obtain a local business license and a valid seller’s permit from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration; and
• Require compliance with other generally applicable laws.

SB 972 (Gonzalez, 2022) further refined existing law related to sidewalk vending by:

• Establishing a new retail food facility type, referred to as a “compact mobile food operation” (CMFO) as a type of mobile food facility that operate as a pushcart or stand;
• Exempting CMFOs from several retail food code law provisions, including certain sink requirements; and
• Prohibiting criminal penalties from also applying to CMFOs, instead limiting code enforcement to administrative penalties.

The Western Fairs Association says sidewalk vending near fairgrounds and accompanying parking lots entrances and exits has increased congestion and raised safety evacuation concerns, and has caused fair vendors to complain about the presence of sidewalk vendors nearby.

Proposed Law

Assembly Bill 2791 allows local authorities (cities and counties) to prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating within 250 feet of both the entrance and exit of a fair and the associated parking lot of that fair during the hours the fair is operating.

AB 2791 defines its terms and makes technical changes to existing sidewalk vending law.

Comments

1. Purpose of the bill. According to the author “California’s fairs play a vital role in every community throughout the state. Our state’s fairs host ten million visitors annually and are designated staging areas for disaster response and fire evacuations. The state has required fairs to be financially self-sufficient and as a result, it is imperative that fairs maximize the revenues of each of their events in order to continue to meet their obligations to their community.

“The annual fair is most attended event at each district agricultural association and county fair. Annual fairs take months of planning and vendors are carefully regulated. In the past two years, California fairs have seen an increase in sidewalk vending in the immediate vicinity during the time of their annual fairs. This has caused increased traffic in pedestrian pick-up and drop off zones and has led to discontent between fairs and their vendors. AB 2791 will allow local governments the option of prohibiting street vending during their annual fairs.”

2. Public safety planning for fairs. A government’s primary responsibility is to ensure public health and safety. Emergency planning is a core function of fulfilling that responsibility including at general public gathering places like fairgrounds. AB 2661 arises from a fundamental concern that some sidewalk vendors might impair safety at fairgrounds during large events like an annual fair. However, local governments can already impose requirements to ensure safety that apply broadly to all individuals, regardless of whether they are sidewalk vendors or other members of the community. Specifically, the California Constitution charges local officials with preserving the health, safety, and welfare of their constituents, and grants them broad authority to do so under the police power. Under this authority, a local government can impose restrictions that apply uniformly to any individual engaging in the specific behavior that causes a safety concern, such as blocking ingress and egress from a fair, rather than a requirement that applies only to a single group of individuals, such as sidewalk vendors.

Additionally, existing street vending law already grants authority for local authorities to prevent sidewalk vending from impacting public health and safety. Among other provisions, sidewalk vending law allows a local authority to adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending if the requirements are directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. Local governments already exercise this authority to preserve public safety in situations similar to annual fairs. For example, the City of Santa Monica’s street vending ordinance accounts for how the wooden pier and surrounding area next to the beach make this area particularly vulnerable to fire and environmental hazards. Santa Monica has two restricted zones that the local government deems are high-traffic areas where congestion can risk public safety. The first is a 100-foot restriction by the Santa Monica Pier, where all street vending is prohibited except for those vendors under the City’s licensed vendor cart program. The second prohibits stationary street vending at the beach, Third Street Promenade, and portions of Palisades Park within 500 feet of the Pier Bridge. Accordingly, it is unclear why local governments need additional authority to ensure public safety.

4. Economic opportunity. One of the purposes of enacting SB 946 was to legitimize sidewalk vendors as part of the formal economy by formalizing their business activities, allowing them to operate more broadly in communities, and ensuring local agencies could not criminalize the act of street vending. The sponsor of this bill states some fair vendors complain that the presence of sidewalk vendors outside of the fairgrounds leads to potential declines in fair vendor revenues. AB 2661 prohibits sidewalk vending near fairs, but in doing so, the bill elevates fair vendors over sidewalk vendors by limiting the ability of sidewalk vendors to sell their wares at popular locations. This may run contrary to the intent of sidewalk vending law, which expressly states that economic competition is not an objective health, safety, or welfare concern that can form the basis for regulating sidewalk vendors, and which was intended to address the historical marginalization of sidewalk vendors. Changes to sidewalk vending law should be carefully evaluated to maintain the intended balance of sidewalk vending law to allow for vendors to operate fairly within local economic ecosystems. The Committee may wish to consider whether AB 2661 strikes the right balance on economic opportunity for fair vendors and sidewalk vendors.

5. Related legislation. SB 1290 (Allen, 2020) would have allowed a local authority to impose the full amount of fines for the fourth or subsequent violations of sidewalk vending ordinances without regard of the person’s ability to pay. This bill was held in Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Assembly Actions

Assembly Local Government Committee: 9-0

Assembly Floor: 71-0

Support and Opposition

(6/7/24)

Support: Western Fairs Association (Sponsor)

Opposition: None received.

-- END --

ASSEMBLY THIRD READING

ATR Bill Id:AB 2791

Author:(Wilson)

As Amended Ver:May 2, 2024

Majority vote

SUMMARY

Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating within 250 feet of an annual fair.

Major Provisions

Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating within 250 feet of both of the following:

1. Entrances to, and exits from, an annual fair during the operating hours of the annual fair.
2. Entrances to, and exits from, parking lots located on fairgrounds and used for parking during the operating hours of an annual fair.

Defines "annual fair" to mean an annual fair operated by a district agricultural association, county fair, or citrus fruit fair, as described in Division 3 (commencing with Section 3001) of the Food and Agricultural Code.

COMMENTS

Until 2019, cities and counties were able to regulate or ban sidewalk vending as they saw fit. Due to concerns that criminal citations for sidewalk vendors could enable deportation by the federal government, and to legalize the activity of sidewalk vending as a means of economic support for immigrant communities, the Legislature enacted SB 946 (Lara), Chapter 459, Statutes of 2018. SB 946 prohibited local governments from banning sidewalk vending, prohibited any infractions from being punishable as an infraction or misdemeanor, and established other parameters for local sidewalk vending ordinances.

Specifically, SB 946 prohibited cities and counties from regulating sidewalk vendors unless they adopt a regulatory framework consistent with the bill's provisions. Among other things, SB 946 prohibited a city or county from requiring sidewalk vendors to operate within specific parts of the public right-of-way, unless that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. Local authorities can neither restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendors, nor require sidewalk vendors to operate only in a designated area, unless these restrictions are directly related to health, safety, or welfare concerns.

SB 946 did allow cities and counties to adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending if the requirements are directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. It also allowed cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors near special events, and to prohibit stationary vendors (but not roaming vendors) in certain circumstances in parks and exclusively residential zones.

SB 946 also specifically allowed local agencies to prohibit sidewalk vendors in the immediate vicinity of a permitted certified farmers' market market, or a permitted swap meet during the limited operating hours of that certified farmers' market or swap meet.

According to the Author

California's fairs play a vital role in every community throughout the state. Our state's fairs host 10 million visitors annually and are designated staging areas for disaster response and fire evacuations. The state has required fairs to be financially self-sufficient and as a result, it is imperative that fairs maximize the revenues of each of their events in order to continue to meet their obligations to their community.

The annual fair is most attended event at each district agricultural association and county fair. Annual fairs take months of planning and vendors are carefully regulated. In the past two years, California fairs have seen an increase in sidewalk vending in the immediate vicinity during the time of their annual fairs. This has caused increased traffic in pedestrian pick-up and drop off zones and has led to discontent between fairs and their vendors. This bill will allow local governments the option of prohibiting street vending during their annual fairs.

Arguments in Support

The Western Fairs Association, sponsor of this bill, writes, "Currently, local governments have the authority prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating outside of a certified farmer's market and flea markets. California's Fair Network is a vital asset to our local communities and emergency operations systems. During the pandemic, several fairgrounds served as testing locations, command centers for the Office of Emergency Services, and homeless shelters. Additionally, fairs are designated staging areas for natural disaster response. These services are provided without reimbursement from the state.

"Fairs host 10 million visitors each year and the most attended event at each fairground is the annual fair. Over the last two years, fairs have seen an increase in sidewalk vendors operating during their annual fairs. This has caused a potential decrease in the amount of revenue generated inside the fair, as well as increased traffic and congestion in parking lots. Additionally, permitted fair vendors have routinely complained about the presence of unpermitted vendors operating directly outside of the fairs. [This bill] will ensure that annual fairs operate in the most efficient and profitable way possible."

Arguments in Opposition

None on file.

FISCAL COMMENTS

None.

VOTES

ASM LOCAL GOVERNMENT: 9-0-0

YES: Juan Carrillo, Waldron, Essayli, Haney, Kalra, Pacheco, Ramos, Ward, Wilson

UPDATED

VERSION: May 2, 2024

CONSULTANT: Angela Mapp / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958 FN: 0002865

Date of Hearing: May 1, 2024

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Juan Carrillo, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 2791 (

Author:Wilson) – As Introduced Ver:February 15, 2024

SUBJECT: Sidewalk vendors.

SUMMARY: Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of an annual fair. Specifically, this bill:

1. Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of an annual fair.
2. Defines “annual fair” to an annual fair operated by a district agricultural association, county fair, or citrus fruit fair, as described in Division 3 (commencing with Section 3001) of the Food and Agriculture Code.
3. Makes technical and conforming changes.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Allows, under the California Constitution, a city or county to “make and enforce within its limits all local, police, sanitary and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.” This is commonly referred to as the police power of cities and counties. (Cal. Const., Art. XI, § 7)
2. Prohibits local authorities­­ from regulating sidewalk vendors, unless they adopt a regulatory framework consistent with the following provisions [Government Code (GOV) §§ 51036 – 51039]:
3. Prohibits a city or county from requiring sidewalk vendors to operate within specific parts of the public right-of-way, except where that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. Local authorities can neither restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendors, nor require sidewalk vendors to operate only in a designated area, unless these restrictions are directly related to health, safety, or welfare concerns.
4. Allows cities and counties to adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending if the requirements are directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns, as specified.
5. Prohibits criminal penalties for violations of sidewalk vending ordinances and instead establishes an administrative fine structure.
6. Allows a local authority with a compliant sidewalk vending program to impose an administrative penalty of $100 for a first violation of the local sidewalk vending ordinance, $200 for a second violation within one year of the first violation, and $300 for each additional violation within one year of the first violation. Administrative penalties for vending without a permit follow a similar structure and are $250, $500, and $1,000, respectively.
7. Requires an adjudicator of these fines to take into account the ability of the violator to pay the fine and allows a violator to require an ability to pay determination at any point. A local authority must accept 20% of the fine in full satisfaction if the violator earns less than 125% of the federal poverty line.
8. Prohibits any local authorities from imposing any additional financial penalties, and prohibits penalties for violations of sidewalk vending from being subject to arrest, except where permitted under law.
9. Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating near special events, and to prohibit stationary vendors (but not roaming vendors) in certain circumstances in parks and exclusively residential zones.
10. Allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of a permitted certified farmers’ market or a permitted swap meet during the limited operating hours of that certified farmers’ market or swap meet, as specified

FISCAL EFFECT: None

COMMENTS:

1. Bill Summary and Author’s Statement. This bill allows cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of an annual fair operated by a district agricultural association, county fair, or citrus fruit fair, as described in the Food and Agriculture Code.

This bill is sponsored by the Western Fairs Association.

According to the author, “California’s fairs play a vital role in every community throughout the state. Our state’s fairs host ten million visitors annually and are designated staging areas for disaster response and fire evacuations. The state has required fairs to be financially self-sufficient and as a result, it is imperative that fairs maximize the revenues of each of their events in order to continue to meet their obligations to their community.

“The annual fair is most attended event at each district agricultural association and county fair. Annual fairs take months of planning and vendors are carefully regulated. In the past two years, California fairs have seen an increase in sidewalk vending in the immediate vicinity during the time of their annual fairs. This has caused increased traffic in pedestrian pick-up and drop off zones and has led to discontent between fairs and their vendors. AB 2791 will allow local governments the option of prohibiting street vending during their annual fairs.”

1. Background. The California Constitution allows a city or county to “make and enforce within its limits, all local, police, sanitary and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.” This is commonly referred to as the police power of cities and counties. It is from this fundamental power that local governments derive their authority to regulate land uses through planning, zoning ordinances, and use permits. Local agencies also use this police power to abate nuisances and protect public health, safety and welfare.

As an extension of the police power, state law lets local governments require businesses operating in their jurisdictions to obtain a license and impose related licensing fees. Local governments license businesses for lots of reasons: to identify individuals operating businesses in their jurisdictions; to ensure compliance with other local laws; to facilitate contact in case a problem arises; and, to raise money to support public services that support those businesses.

Cities and counties subject businesses to a wide variety of regulations to preserve the public health and welfare, such as limitations on their hours of operation, restrictions on where various types of businesses can be located within a jurisdiction, and regulations on the type of merchandise that can be sold. These regulations are typically intended to address concerns of local citizens about the impact of a business.

1. Sidewalk Vendors and Immigrant Communities. Sidewalk vendors are individuals that sell goods on streets and sidewalks from carts and other non-motorized conveyances. Some sidewalk vendors are stationary, while others move from one location to another. Although there is no statewide count, there are an estimated 10,000 sidewalk vendors selling food in the City of Los Angeles alone.

According to “Racial Justice for Street Vendors,” an article published by the California Law Review in June of 2021, “Street vending has long held economic and social significance for immigrant communities. For one thing, street vending and other public markets have traditionally filled the basic consumption needs of poor workers, demonstrating how immigrants support the informal economy as both producers and consumers. As a form of work, street vending is defined by relatively low barriers of entry at least when compared to selling goods and services within brick-and-mortar settings.

“In Southern California, street vending has long been tied to migrant communities, which has, unsurprisingly, sparked strong, divergent reactions among the public. During the late nineteenth century, Chinese migrants sold produce in the streets of Los Angeles.

During this same period of time – a period marked by anti-Chinese sentiment in federal immigration policy – Los Angeleno lawmakers began creating and defining public space in narrow terms that privileged the interests of pedestrians and disregarded the interests of street vendors. Local officials began increasing licensing fees only for vegetable peddlers, who were disproportionately Chinese. Fees for fruit peddlers, who were mostly white, did not increase. The Chinese peddlers went on strike and began challenging these ordinances in court, often successfully.

“This battle over street vendor rights – and the social meaning of street vending – presaged a similar fight that would unfold more than a century later in East Los Angeles. As gentrification and exclusionary zoning laws began displacing poor residents of communities like Boyle Heights – a neighborhood with a significant Latinx residential population – advocates and community members began coalescing around street vendor rights as an attempt to empower themselves in the face of pending displacement.

“As gentrification efforts gained momentum in urban communities of color across the country, lawmakers and brick-and-mortar business owners pressured police to target those selling food in public spaces. Police harassment of female street vendors in that community led to the LA Street Vendor Campaign that pressured lawmakers for legislative reform, first in Los Angeles and then in Sacramento…

“In particular, immigrant rights advocates pointed to the disproportionate dangers posed by low-level or misdemeanor policing, a form of law enforcement commonly understood to lead to only minor outcomes. The reality has been that even minor contact with the criminal justice system can lead to an array of immigration consequences including removal from the United States. In 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act (SSVA). This law decriminalizes sidewalk vending. Lawmakers presented this law as an important effort to protect unauthorized immigrants who work in the informal economy.

“The SSVA sought to dial down the punitive aspects of the law governing street vending.

In place of criminal penalties, the new law imposes a set of escalating fines. Crucially, the law instructs regulators to take into account a person’s ‘ability to pay’ when assessing fines and prohibits prosecutors from using criminal infractions or misdemeanors to punish those who fail to pay these fines. In other contexts, the failure to pay fees has had a ‘snowballing’ effect, in which minor infractions can quickly balloon into serious violations with criminal penalties. Defanging both the substantive grounds and the enforcement mechanisms helped to clear away any brush from adjacent areas of law that might transform an administrative or civil penalty into a criminal one.”

1. State and Local Regulation of Sidewalk Vending. Until 2019, cities and counties were able to regulate or ban sidewalk vending as they saw fit. Due to concerns that criminal citations for sidewalk vendors could enable deportation by the federal government, and to legalize the activity of sidewalk vending as a means of economic support for immigrant communities, the Legislature enacted SB 946 (Lara), Chapter 459, Statutes of 2018. SB 946 prohibited local governments from banning sidewalk vending, prohibited any infractions from being punishable as an infraction or misdemeanor, and established other parameters for local sidewalk vending ordinances.

Specifically, SB 946 prohibited cities and counties from regulating sidewalk vendors unless they adopt a regulatory framework consistent with the bill’s provisions. Among other things, SB 946 prohibited a city or county from requiring sidewalk vendors to operate within specific parts of the public right-of-way, unless that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. Local authorities can neither restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendors, nor require sidewalk vendors to operate only in a designated area, unless these restrictions are directly related to health, safety, or welfare concerns.

SB 946 did allow cities and counties to adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending if the requirements are directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. It also allowed cities and counties to prohibit sidewalk vendors near special events, and to prohibit stationary vendors (but not roaming vendors) in certain circumstances in parks and exclusively residential zones.

SB 946 also specifically allowed local agencies to prohibit sidewalk vendors in the immediate vicinity of a permitted certified farmers’ market market, or a permitted swap meet during the limited operating hours of that certified farmers’ market or swap meet.

1. Policy Considerations. The Committee may wish to consider the following:

Annual fairs, while they are financially accessible to many in their communities, are not always affordable for everyone. The charges for admission and amusement activities alone may be cost-prohibitive, and the price of food and water – which are basic necessities – inside of the fair’s gates can impose an additional burden on many families. Sidewalk vendors can help ease some of these constraints as families approach or leave the fair.

In addition, as noted above, sidewalk vending is a critical source of income for thousands of families in California. The Committee may wish to consider if additional specificity is needed to continue to allow a reasonable amount of sidewalk vending near fairs while still alleviating the concerns that have been expressed by the author and sponsor of this bill.

1. Committee Amendments. The Committee may wish to amend this bill as follows:

Delete the existing language amending GOV § 50138(d)(1) and, instead, add the following to GOV § 50138(d):

(2) Prohibit sidewalk vendors within 250 feet of the following:

(A) Entrances to, and exits from, an annual fair during the operating hours of the annual fair.

(B) Entrances to, and exits from, parking lots located on fairgrounds and being used for parking during the operating hours of the annual fair.

(C) For purposes of this paragraph, “annual fair” means an annual fair operated by a district agricultural association, county fair, or citrus fruit fair, as described in Division 3 (commencing with Section 3001) of the Food and Agriculture Code.

1. Previous Legislation. SB 1290 (Allen) of 2022 would have required, by January 1, 2025, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development to submit a specified report to the Legislature on local sidewalk vending in California. SB 1290 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

SB 972 (Gonzalez), Chapter 489, Statutes of 2022, established a new type of retail food facility called a “compact mobile food operation” (CMFO) as a subcategory of mobile food facility that is nonmotorized and operates from a pushcart or stand; exempted CMFOs from various provisions of the retail food code law, including certain sink requirements; prohibited criminal penalties from applying to CMFOs and instead limited enforcement to administrative penalties; and, exempted sales from CMFOs from counting toward the limits for cottage food operators or microenterprise home kitchens.

SB 946 (Lara), Chapter 459, Statutes of 2018, decriminalized sidewalk vending and established various requirements for local regulation of sidewalk vendors.

1. Arguments in Support. The Western Fairs Association, sponsor of this bill, writes, “Currently, local governments have the authority prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating outside of a certified farmer's market and flea markets. California’s Fair Network is a vital asset to our local communities and emergency operations systems. During the pandemic, several fairgrounds served as testing locations, command centers for the Office of Emergency Services, and homeless shelters. Additionally, fairs are designated staging areas for natural disaster response. These services are provided without reimbursement from the state.

“Fairs host ten million visitors each year and the most attended event at each fairground is the annual fair. Over the last two years, fairs have seen an increase in sidewalk vendors operating during their annual fairs. This has caused a potential decrease in the amount of revenue generated inside the fair, as well as increased traffic and congestion in parking lots. Additionally, permitted fair vendors have routinely complained about the presence of unpermitted vendors operating directly outside of the fairs. AB 2791 will ensure that annual fairs operate in the most efficient and profitable way possible.”

1. Arguments in Opposition. None on file.

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Support

Western Fairs Association [SPONSOR]

Opposition

None on file

Analysis Prepared by: Angela Mapp / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958