Yuba City looks to crack down on unpermitted street vendors

Yuba City is looking to crack down on unpermitted street vendors after seeing an uptick in unpermitted street food vendors over the past few years. 

The city council is moving toward a tighter crackdown; they've introduced an amendment to the existing law to allow them to confiscate unpermitted vendors' items. The city says its biggest concern is public safety surrounding food handling.

"It's illegal and I think it should be stopped," said community member Bradley Clevenger.

"Well, right now, this is what I can do: sell. Right now, there's no work. I have no job, and this is what they offered me. And it's what I can do right now. Yeah, working selling fruit," said one food vendor who didn't want to give her name.

The food vendor said she doesn't own the cart, but that vending is her livelihood. She said she'd be willing to get the permit, but doesn't know how. Plus, it's $400.

"We're not really trying to keep them from doing business; we're just trying to get them to do business the right way. I think the idea here is education first, maybe mild enforcement, if that doesn't correct the behavior, then yeah, we'll go to the next level," said Marc Boomgaarden, the mayor of Yuba City.

If the ordinance passes, the city says it's another tool to educate and encourage vendors to come into compliance. The confiscated items will be returned for a fee, or once the vendor gets a permit.

"And what we've found is not a lot of them are from Yuba City or Marysville. They're coming in from other areas and they're directly competing with our brick-and-mortar restaurants, setting up right down the street. And those folks are complying, and the mobile vendors may or may not be complying. We want them to do their work, but must do so appropriately and with the right things," said Boomgaarden.

The city says ultimately this has come about because of the recent abundance of unpermitted vendors who are approached by the county health department and told to take down their stuff and then a few hours later they set back up. The city says the next step would be to tighten the law using confiscation.

The city council will be voting on the ordinance in the first week of March.