Statement on Recent Violence Against Street Vendors
Yesterday, a street vendor in Boyle Heights was stabbed several times on 1st street, right across from the Metro’s Gold line Station. The street vendor, Ignacio Torres, was rushed to the hospital and if it were not for his wife being across the street, he may not have been in a position to recover from his injuries. If you would like to help him and his family, you can donate to their GoFundMe.
Mr. Torres, is just the latest in a string of random acts of violence against street vendors over the last year: An entrepreneur in Fresno was shot point-blank while vending. In Lynwood, a raspado vendor was assaulted by a group of passersby. A paletero in Downtown LA was beaten and robbed. A flower vendor in Inglewood was assaulted and robbed.
Like our partners in the LA Street Vendor Campaign, we sometimes get phone calls about these terrible incidents asking:
“What can we do?”
“Can you set up a GoFundMe for the street vendor?”
“Can your emergency fund help this vendor who is in trouble?”
“Perhaps resources like a cashless payment system or a tracking device can support street vendors who are at risk?”
All these interventions are helpful. We should donate when we can, and make sure that we protect our local vendors who may be victims of crime. But the truth is that donating is not enough. We must also use our voices to demand that our local and state governments protect street vendors, too.
Our systems routinely fail these entrepreneurs, but our government also has the power and opportunity to model how we should care for micro-entrepreneurs like street vendors. Instead of the unexpected raids by law-enforcement of street vendor locations and popular night markets like Avenue 26 and the bureaucratic barriers faced by vendors in areas like Leimert Park, we need to urgently work to modernize the unjust policies that keep our street vending community on the margins of our economy.
Over the last year, we have seen first hand the struggles of street vendors. We’ve been successful in deploying $400 cash cards to over 1,500 street vendors through the Street Vendor Emergency Fund we administer with our partners. 96% of the street vendors we’ve supported have seen a drop in sales. Nearly 60% were behind on rent, and 46% had to take out loans to make ends meet. These financial struggles are another form of violence too, an economic violence that is intertwined with the physical violence street vendors risk facing every day. Vendors have rightfully fought for - and deserve - government support.
It’s horrifying that street vendors continue to be attacked, but these attacks are not only taking place at the hands of private citizens. Street vendors are also experiencing violence as a result of outdated laws, armed enforcement, and exclusion from business support. If street vendors continue to be perceived as "informal" or operating "illegally" due to government treatment, they will continue to be targeted by passersby. Let’s keep donating to street vendors and their families, but we must not stop there. We must call on our elected officials to create an environment where all street vendors are protected through investment in their small businesses, updated food codes that allow them to vend without fear of harassment from law enforcement, and just sidewalk vending programs that promote this kind of entrepreneurism instead of deter it.