Jorge “El Burro,” the frequently photographed stuffed donkey that has greeted visitors of Olvera Street for decades, won’t be around for much longer.
On March 13, an L.A. judge ruled that the owner of the donkey’s La Carreta stand, Richard Hernandez, was to be evicted.
“Good Bye Los Angeles it’s been great!” reads a sign at the stand. “Since 1968 the Hernandez family has brought you timeless memories. Generations have been photographed here. We lost our case with the City of Los Angeles, we want to stay. But Mayor Bass won’t negotiate.”
The ruling handed down by the Los Angeles County Superior Court is the culmination of a years-long saga involving the La Carreta owner and the city.
In 2024, Hernandez was given a 30-day eviction notice by the Board of Commissioners for the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument Authority, which manages the historic and commercial resources of Olvera Street.
To try to resolve any problems the city may have had with the stand, Hernandez said he has attempted to pay for any and all missed payments.
“I offered to pay whatever is owed, penalties, whatever, and they returned my check,” he told KTLA.
Following an inquiry from The Times, the mayor’s office sent a statement from the city’s El Pueblo Historical Monument Department.
“The Burro has been an iconic feature for so many Angelenos, which is why the city has been open to working with Mr. Hernandez and his family to honor its history,” the statement read. “But the lease for that space ended on its own terms with the passing of Maria Hernandez on April 16, 2024, and City contracting requirements necessitate a bidding process. Mr. Hernandez has been informed that the bidding process is open to the public.”
Maria Trancito Hernandez, Richard’s mother and the stand’s legal owner, died in April 2024 without leaving behind proper legal documentation that handed over her business to her children.
But it wasn’t from a lack of trying that this became the case.
The matriarch attempted to add Richard, who had been managing the stand since the 1990s, and her daughter Patricia Hernandez to the lease agreement in 2019. However, Olvera Street’s general manager expressed concern regarding Richard when presented with the request.
He cited a “record of nonpayment of rent, inconsistent business insurance, aggressive and threatening behavior and making false accusations against city staff and merchants.” No further documentation was provided to show Hernandez’s alleged behavior.
Hernandez was placed on a one-year hold to give him an opportunity to improve his behavior. The board eventually found that his aggressiveness continued from 2019 through 2023, but it offered no examples.
Daniel J. Bramzon, Hernandez’s attorney and the president of the tenant rights nonprofit Basta Inc., told The Times that Hernandez had been in talks with El Pueblo to get La Carreta under his name since at least 2011.
The lawyer claimed that Hernandez had been approved to get added to the lease agreement three different times by three different general managers of El Pueblo — once in 2011, then again in 2013 and 2019. Bramzon said Hernandez was never formally added due to clerical mishandlings.
“You have a history of Richard assuming people are doing their jobs at El Pueblo and adding him to the contract,” Bramzon said. “Richard was really a victim of a lazy bureaucracy.”
A year after the 2024 eviction notice, a court ruled in the Hernandez family’s favor to temporarily protect them from eviction, L.A. Taco reportedin 2025.
The victory only briefly tided over the situation as the family immediately faced another legal battle regarding the stand’s eviction that ultimately led to last week’s decision.
Jorge sprang from the mind of Richard’s eccentric patriarch, and the donkey’s path to notoriety was highlighted by visits from L.A. mayors and an appearance in the 1987 film “La Bamba.”
La Carreta dates to the late 1960s, when Hernandez’s father, Jesus “Don Chuy” Hernandez, originally set up on Olvera Street.
In those days, Don Chuy employed a live donkey from Pomona named Cirila.
In the early 1970s, a photo with Cirila cost $2, and the animal drew crowds of visitors. Cirila was also used in Olvera Street’s traditional Christmas posadas.
Cirila was retired in 1972 and replaced with the stuffed donkey Jorge, who was shipped from Mexico City.
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