The recent embrace of illicit street vendors by both mayoral candidates in LA shows that the city will continue its slide into Third World governance unless citizens stand up and demand change.
Mayor Karen Bass recently directed the LAPD to stop issuing criminal citations to street vendors that break the law.
She’s backtracking from the tough stance she took in the mayoral debate earlier this month.
There — in front of an audience of homeowners and small business owners — Mayor Bass declared: “I do not think that you should have a food vendor in front of a restaurant, period.”
They applauded that — especially because it was a stark contrast from the wishy-washy stance that challenger Nithya Raman took.
But Bass has evidently flip-flopped, and has decided that she wants to be seen as a friend of street vendors who are breaking the law.
Vendor carts can be charming. Some are legitimate businesses, which have obtained proper licenses and pay their taxes.
Many are not, and they make money by evading the laws and taxes that brick-and-mortar restaurants cannot escape.
In addition, many food vendors on the street are illegally in the country.
Meanwhile, hard-working Angelenos who have invested generations of hard work into family restaurants are being undercut by these illegal operators.
Somehow, Democrats have forgotten about those small business owners, many of whom are immigrants, in the rush to embrace illegal businesses.
Democrat gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra started this nonsense in July, when he told a gathering of Latino leaders that tacos sold on the street were the “real” Mexican food.
He even claimed that you can’t get good tacos from “some establishment that’s been around for a long time,” saying street vendors made better food.
With that ignorant remark, Becerra trashed family-owned restaurants across California — especially in the Mexican-American community.
He also made clear that he sides with illegal businesses — and illegal immigrants — over Americans who obey the law.
It’s an odd stance for a former California attorney general to take. But it shows how far we have slid toward anarchy.
In Third World countries, people set up illegal street businesses, with little regard to health or public safety.
LA is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It should not tolerate squalor and lawbreaking.
Bass and Raman are pandering to the far-left, hurting hard-working families in the process.
If you won’t enforce the city’s laws, drop out.
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