This year, street vendors won another hard-fought battle: A new law that makes it easier to qualify for public health permits, which certify that a business is up to state standards
LOS ANGELES - Mario Ramos picked this slice of speckled sidewalk to sell his homemade ice cream 12 years ago.
In Los Angeles, which has an estimated 10,000 street vendors, many of them undocumented, businessmen like Ramos have been both criminalized and regarded as an integral part of local culture. It's a profession that dates as far back as the late 1800s - just a few decades after California became a state - when newspapers mentioned the city's tamaleros, or tamale street vendors.
. For years, immigrant organizations, workers' rights groups and street vendors themselves have been asking for this change; a 2021 report found that of an estimated 10,000 sidewalk food vendors in Los Angeles, only 165 had received permits.Ramos, who obtained a permit after the law went into effect in January, says it has been the start of a new chapter.
"It does hurt me that my kids couldn't be normal kids, right? With a normal life," Ramos said. "But I didn't worry. Because we didn't come from a comfortable life in Mexico. There [in Mexico] you suffer, and here you suffer. It's part of life." When he moved into his own home, Ramos says he tried to branch out, first selling tamales, atoles, empanadas, even homemade donas . He made some money, but not much. He switched to selling clothes but still wasn't earning enough. It was when he made the switch to raspas - snow cones - that he noticed an improvement in fortunes, and a fellow vendor suggested he try ice cream.
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