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When gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra casually advised the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials to bypass California’s traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants — arguing that you don’t get “real street tacos” from a long-standing establishment, but from the guy who makes them “in his little cart” — he likely thought he was delivering a charming, populist nod to local culinary culture. Instead, his comment touched a raw nerve across the state’s food service industry.
The issue isn’t tacos or the street food culture. The real crisis brought to light by Becerra’s remark is a fundamental breakdown in economic fairness: an expanding state-sanctioned underground economy operating outside the health, labor and tax regulations that legitimate restaurant owners are legally required to follow.
In California, running a compliant brick-and-mortar restaurant is a punishing enterprise. Owners must navigate rising commercial rents, local permitting fees, mandatory health inspections, workers’ compensation requirements and strict labor standards. These local entrepreneurs, many of them first- and second-generation immigrants, invest their life savings into building legitimate, law-abiding businesses.
Yet, under the current regulatory landscape, these business owners feel routinely undercut by sidewalk operations that face much less operational overhead and almost no regulatory enforcement.
This is largely the unintended byproduct of Senate Bill 946, the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act passed in 2018. Intended to decriminalize sidewalk vending and foster grassroots entrepreneurship, the law restricted how local governments could regulate street vendors. In practice, however, it created a legal and enforcement vacuum.
What was envisioned as a path to legitimacy for micro-entrepreneurs has evolved in many urban centers into an unmonitored underground economy where cutting corners is not an anomaly, but a business model.
California’s restaurants generate more sales tax for state and local government than any other type of business, while these sidewalk operations — of which there are an estimated 50,000 just in Los Angeles County — often deal in cash or untracked digital transfers, evading state sales tax and local business assessments. As California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta noted during an enforcement action against underground economic operations, tax evasion is not a victimless crime: “When individuals and businesses deliberately avoid their legal responsibilities, they are shifting the burden onto honest taxpayers and depriving communities of essential funding.”
While brick-and-mortar restaurants must comply with strict minimum wage laws, overtime rules and youth employment standards, unpermitted carts operate completely in the shadows. Reports across major California metros highlight wage theft, sub-minimum wage pay and the use of child labor, with young children frequently seen working late-night shifts near high-heat cooking equipment.
Permitted restaurants undergo unannounced inspections of food storage temperature, clean water access and sanitation protocols. Unlicensed vendors frequently operate without food handler certifications, proper refrigeration or access to handwashing stations. And untreated grease and wastewater have been dumped directly into storm drains, posing environmental hazards and elevating the risk of foodborne illness.
Unregulated vendors often deploy makeshift propane setups, open flames and unmaintained gas generators, engage in unlicensed alcohol sales and erect sprawling vendor setups obstructing sidewalks.
Cities such as Oakland, San Diego, Fontana and Santa Barbara, which have attempted to address the growing problem of unregulated vendors, have been challenged in the courts by civil rights groups and advocacy organizations on the grounds that they are violating the law because SB 946 preempts them from enforcement. The law bars them from shutting down operations that pose a risk to public health and safety.
Restaurant owners across the state are asking a simple question: Why must we pay tens of thousands of dollars in permits and follow every code on the books, while the vendor setup directly in front of our dining room door pays nothing and answers to no one?
Addressing this crisis does not require outlawing street vending. Indeed, street food adds cultural and culinary richness to many of California’s cities. But cultural value cannot be an excuse for an enforcement double standard.
California must reestablish a single standard of lawfulness. Sidewalk vendors who obtain health permits, collect sales tax, abide by labor laws and maintain safe equipment should be welcomed as part of our vibrant food ecosystem. But those who do not must face real and consistent consequences.
When political leaders encourage consumers to bypass rule-following businesses in favor of an unregulated underground economy, they miss the bigger picture. True economic justice isn’t about rewarding those who skip the rules. It’s about ensuring every entrepreneur complies with the same set of standards.
Jot Condie is president and chief executive of the California Restaurant Assn.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that Xavier Becerra’s praise for tacos from “the guy who makes them in his little cart” is not a harmless cultural aside but a window into a deeper problem: a growing, state‑sanctioned underground economy of sidewalk vendors operating outside the regulatory framework that brick‑and‑mortar restaurants must obey.
The piece emphasizes that running a compliant restaurant in California is a “punishing” undertaking, noting rising commercial rents, complex permitting, mandatory health inspections, workers’ compensation requirements and strict labor standards, all of which fall heavily on small, often immigrant‑owned businesses that have invested their savings to open lawful establishments.
The article contends that Senate Bill 946, the 2018 Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, unintentionally created an enforcement vacuum by sharply limiting how cities can regulate street vendors; what was meant as a pathway to legitimacy for micro‑entrepreneurs has, in this view, evolved into an unmonitored underground economy where cutting regulatory corners is a core business strategy rather than an exception.
The piece highlights tax fairness as a central concern, asserting that restaurants generate more sales tax than any other business type while tens of thousands of sidewalk operations in Los Angeles County alone often transact in cash or untracked digital payments, thereby evading sales tax and local business assessments and shifting the fiscal burden onto compliant taxpayers.
To underscore the harm of tax evasion, the article cites California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s public warning that when businesses avoid their legal obligations, they deprive communities of essential funding and unfairly increase the burden on honest taxpayers, framing the sidewalk vending economy as part of that broader problem.
The article argues that labor protections are being undermined, claiming that unpermitted carts frequently operate “in the shadows,” with documented instances of wage theft, sub‑minimum pay and child labor, including children working late‑night shifts around high‑heat cooking equipment, while restaurants must comply with minimum wage, overtime and youth employment rules.
The piece stresses health and safety risks, noting that permitted restaurants face surprise inspections for food storage temperatures, clean water and sanitation, whereas many unlicensed vendors lack food‑handler certifications, proper refrigeration and handwashing stations, and have been observed dumping grease and wastewater into storm drains, raising the danger of foodborne illness and environmental damage.
The article further criticizes the use of makeshift propane systems, open flames, unmaintained gas generators, unlicensed alcohol sales and sprawling vendor setups that block sidewalks, arguing that SB 946 leaves cities unable to shut down operations that pose obvious threats to public health and safety.
The piece describes cities such as Oakland, San Diego, Fontana and Santa Barbara as attempting to respond to unregulated vending, only to be challenged in court by civil‑rights and advocacy groups that argue local crackdowns violate SB 946’s limits on enforcement, leaving municipalities caught between legal constraints and mounting safety concerns.
The article reports that restaurant owners see a stark double standard: they pay tens of thousands of dollars in permits and follow “every code on the books,” even as vendor setups directly outside their doors pay nothing and face little oversight, a situation the piece characterizes as a breakdown in economic fairness.
While acknowledging that street food contributes cultural and culinary richness and explicitly stating that addressing the problem does not require outlawing sidewalk vending, the article insists that cultural value cannot justify an enforcement double standard and calls for a single, consistent standard of lawfulness applied to all food businesses.
The piece proposes that sidewalk vendors who secure health permits, collect and remit sales tax, comply with labor laws and use safe equipment should be embraced as part of the state’s food ecosystem, but those who do not should face meaningful, consistent consequences rather than being effectively exempt from rules that restaurants must follow.
Finally, the article criticizes political leaders who encourage consumers to bypass rule‑following restaurants for unregulated carts, arguing that this overlooks the larger issue of fairness; in the piece’s view, true economic justice lies not in rewarding those who ignore regulations but in ensuring every entrepreneur operates under the same standards.
Different views on the topic
In contrast to the article’s alarm about sidewalk vending, coverage of Xavier Becerra’s remarks at the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference shows the candidate framing cart‑based street food as the source of “real” tacos and as part of a broader narrative about the high “price of promoting diversity” and “simply driving while brown,” implicitly linking street vendors to cultural pride and inclusion in Latino communities.[1][2]
Civil‑rights organizations and sidewalk‑vendor advocates, which have sued cities like Oakland and San Diego over local crackdowns, have argued that aggressive enforcement against vendors revives the criminalization that SB 946 was enacted to end, contending that ticketing, confiscations and police sweeps disproportionately affect immigrant and low‑income workers who have long relied on informal vending as a survival strategy.
Supporters of SB 946 have pointed out that the law was explicitly designed to decriminalize sidewalk vending and open up low‑barrier paths to entrepreneurship for people shut out of traditional business ownership, arguing that layering restaurant‑style permit fees, inspections and capital requirements onto street vendors would effectively exclude the very communities the statute was intended to help.
Street‑vendor campaigns and immigrant‑rights organizations have stressed that many cart operators are first‑generation entrepreneurs who lack access to credit, formal leases or investor capital; from this perspective, the lower overhead and simplified regulatory environment are not “cutting corners” but necessary conditions for participating in the local economy at all.
Consumer advocates and some policymakers, pointing to recent laws targeting hidden restaurant surcharges and service fees, have expressed concern about pricing practices in the brick‑and‑mortar sector, arguing that mandatory fees and add‑ons can obscure the true cost of dining and undermine public trust; measures such as California’s SB 478 and restaurant‑specific SB 1524, which require mandatory charges to be clearly and conspicuously disclosed on menus, reflect a view that restaurants themselves need strong oversight to ensure transparency and fairness.[3][4]
Labor advocates and anti‑poverty groups have taken a different view of the “punishing” labor standards described in the article, urging successive increases in minimum wage as a tool to lift workers out of poverty and reduce inequality, and arguing that robust wage protections are a necessary cost of doing business in sectors prone to low pay and wage theft.[6]
These worker‑focused perspectives often highlight that wage theft and exploitative conditions occur across the food‑service industry, including in fast‑food chains and some full‑service restaurants, and maintain that strong enforcement of labor laws should apply to all employers rather than being framed primarily as a problem of sidewalk vendors.[5][6]
Advocates for street vending also note that carts frequently serve neighborhoods with limited restaurant options, offering affordable food close to transit stops, workplaces and public spaces; from this standpoint, vendors are seen as filling gaps in the urban food landscape and providing economic opportunities and culturally relevant fare that might not otherwise exist.
Some community and civil‑rights leaders have warned that expanding enforcement powers against sidewalk vendors can lead to over‑policing of public spaces, especially in Latino and immigrant corridors, and argue that criminalizing or heavily penalizing informal work can deepen economic precarity rather than solving safety or sanitation issues.
Urban‑planning and small‑business advocates who support regulated vending have promoted collaborative models—such as designated vending zones, streamlined permitting, technical assistance and multilingual outreach—as alternatives to punitive crackdowns, contending that bringing vendors into compliance through support and clear rules is more effective and equitable than treating them as an underground threat to restaurants.
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