“Carne Asada is not a crime.”
For the past month or so, this slogan has been spackled across the blogosphere and the mainstream press. It is the rallying cry of thousands of Angelenos, all united around one cause: to save East Los Angeles’ taco trucks.
A new county statute designed to further the interests of selfish Eastside business owners may well destroy these cultural icons. Though they’re hard to find in our Westside borough, the UCLA community should support the cause of taco truck drivers, if not in the name of deliciousness, then certainly in the name of free enterprise.
Starting this week, the new law, authored by Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, will require taco truck drivers, some of whom have parked in the same place for years, to move their trucks every hour or risk a $1,000 fine, six months in jail or both. Before, the law requiring them to move was rarely enforced, and the $60 fine slapped on those who failed to do so was just too small to make a difference.
The trucks have defined the Eastside landscape for decades. For a while, they were one of the few sources of cheap food available to the area’s relatively poor residents. In the past decade, however, East Los Angeles has been going through a sort of gentrification. White hipsters aren’t moving into lofts on Whittier Boulevard, but the local small business community has boomed. Some business owners now view the taco trucks as a blight, according to the Los Angeles Times. They feel that revitalizing the area means bringing people into their restaurants and kicking the trucks off the streets.
Molina’s justification for the law is simple. Restaurant owners have accused the trucks of unfair competition; truck vendors have a lower overhead and so can sell their food at prices much lower than restaurants. Restaurant owners feel they have a right to sell expensive tacos.
These sound more like the selfish cries of 19th century steel monopolists than people concerned about their community. Taco trucks are valued deeply by the community and should be allowed to compete freely with other businesses. It’s standard economics. Consumers clearly benefit from the trucks because they offer low prices and a place to socialize ““ a fine thing in a low-income neighborhood with little public space. The only people this law benefits are a few selfish business owners.
If residents really feel like business owners do ““ that they want to “clean up” the neighborhood by filling it with sit-down restaurants ““ let them vote with their feet. Until then, however, the will of the people is to eat tacos on the street.
Some residents have complained that the trucks, which stay open late into the night, are often a source of noise. That’s a valid complaint, but instead of closing the trucks, the county should enforce already-existing noise ordinances. It’s not like the university police would close down O’Hara’s because apartment dwellers on Gayley abhor the noise. Taco trucks shouldn’t be subject to a double standard.
“Taco trucks,” said Cora Cervantes, a fourth-year English and political science student, “are an iconic part of East L.A.” Cervantes grew up there and still ventures back weekly from her home in Boyle Heights to get a taste of their delicious tacos. Since they park in the same place day and night, they function as small sidewalk restaurants where patrons can open up a folding chair and enjoy tacos and non-alcoholic sangria with their friends.
Cervantes recalls getting lost in the neighborhood once and using familiar trucks brightly painted like some postmodern lodestars to identify her location.
The law means that Cervantes, along with hundreds of thousands of other Angelinos, will lose her landmarks.
So please, go sign the petition at saveourtacotrucks.org, and call Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, at 213-974-3333 to tell him to overturn Molina’s unfair law. If you’re headed east anytime soon, check out tacohunt.blogspot.com for reviews of the best trucks.
As for the taco vendors, in case the law does stay on the books, I only have one thing to say: The West Side needs tacos, too. If you can’t sell your fare in the East, ven aquÃ!
Tell Reed about your favorite taco truck at treed@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.