L.A. May Legalize Its Strongest Drug: Street-Vended, Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dogs

I live next to an elementary
school in Los Angeles, and when school lets out, greeting parents
and kids walking home in my neighborhood is a small collection of
street vendors selling ice cream, snacks, and Mexican corn on the
cob. Everything they’re doing is illegal in Los Angeles, offering
children a nice introduction to how black markets work, not that
their customers probably realize the vendors are violating city
law.

Street vending is banned in Los Angeles. City residents may be
forgiven for not realizing this, because they’ve encountered it any
place where lots of people gather. And now Los Angeles might
actually recognize that they really can’t realistically stop this
form of commerce and legalize it. And, of course, heavily regulate
it, like they do in other cities like New York and San Francisco.
LA Weekly, taking special note of the possibility
bacon-wrapped hot dogs will be decriminalized,
describes the new legal process, under consideration this week
by the city’s Economic Development Committee:

As it stands the “framework” for street-side entrepreneurs would
have them take a mandatory course on the rules of the game, apply
and pay for various permits, and obtain county approvals for food
handling, if that’s what they do.

I suspect the street vendors outside my local elementary school
will remain rebels under the law, unable to afford the permits or
course. The “framework” LA Weekly references is a
nine-page document that ends with a flowchart for potential legal
street vendors that has a whole host of steps and involves three
different permitting agencies, any three of which could deny a
permit.

The vote on Tuesday will call for the city to
prepare a report within 90 days about how these vendors may be
legally permitted and regulated. It also calls for the
recommendations for “ways to ensure street vendors provide safe and
healthy food options.” There’s already a way to ensure that: It’s
called consumer demand. Based on that language, bacon-wrapped hot
dogs may continue to enjoy its outlaw status, even if serving them
from street carts becomes technically legal. (There is a square on
the spreadsheet labeled “healthy food certification” that should
make people shudder)

LA Weekly and Reason have been reporting on the illicit
status of these hot dogs all the way back to 2008, detailing how
the city put Elizabeth Palacios in jail to make an example out of
her for selling them. Read more here.
Just like the failed drug wars, the city’s meddling under the guise
of “public safety” have not affected demand one bit.

Below, Reason TV and Drew Carey explored the city’s harassment
of street vendors in 2008: