Santa Barbara County forms task force to address illegal street vendors

Since January, Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services has issued 137 citations to illegal food vendors who operate on sidewalks or the side of the road. 

But the citations don’t do much, according to Gina Fischer, 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann’s chief of staff. 

“They can legally refuse to sign civil citations,” Fischer told the county Board of Supervisors on March 4, adding that they also refuse to provide their names. 

Two state bills aimed at empowering sidewalk vendors emerged from advocacy efforts in Los Angeles, where vendors were criminalized for operating without a permit, she said. However, the legislation has made it difficult for local jurisdictions to pass rules restricting, limiting, or denying vendors from operating. As a result, Fischer said there’s widespread noncompliance with food safety rules, and enforcement is difficult. 

“Unsafe food vending continues to proliferate,” she said. “The primary reason for alarm over the issue is food safety and sanitation concerns.” 

She pointed to vendors who set up along Highway 246 in the Santa Ynez Valley. Environmental Health Services found food stored with no refrigeration, no ice, and no coolant, transported from Los Angeles in vans that also have no way of keeping the food cold. Storing raw or cooked food at temperatures between 41 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit can lead to bacterial growth that’s difficult to detect and unsafe to eat. 

Vendors sometimes dump grease into storm drains and waterways, have open flames in areas with high fire risk, pop up in front of permitted brick-and-mortar businesses, and have servers who are likely working without proper compensation, Fischer said. 

Environmental Health, the department with the least teeth, is left issuing citations. But, she added, other agencies such as Caltrans, which can regulate vending on highway rights of way, also have enforcement mechanisms. 

If those agencies could come together on a task force, perhaps the county could devise a more effective way of addressing the issue, Supervisor Hartmann said. 

Recently, the county started confiscating food from these vendors, which is allowed under state law. Since January, Environmental Services has seized 11 spindles of meat, 14 gallons of raw or sliced beef, and 415 pounds of uncooked meat. The problem, Fischer said, is that the county is required to store seized items for up to 30 days and doesn’t have the storage capacity it needs. The other issue is that vendors just pop right back up the following night. 

While supervisors supported forming a task force to address the issue—voting 4-0 with 1st District Supervisor Roy Lee recusing himself because he owns a restaurant—they agreed that the task force should have a six-month shelf life and focus on coordinating between agencies and departments. 

“The different agencies have authorities, and if they’re coordinated, we can get a lot of bang for our existing buck,” Hartmann said. 

Supervisors also requested that departments come back to the board to ask for what they need for enforcement help, whether it’s sea-train containers to store confiscated equipment or overtime dollars so enforcement can happen at night and on weekends.

“More meetings don’t solve problems, actual enforcement does. … We need to enforce the actual rules,” 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson said. “I’m not a big fan of having laws sit on the books, where we see people violate them and we don’t do anything about it.”

This article appears in Mar 6-16, 2025.