http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20070402-0943-ca-brf-socal-peddlerban.html

9:43 a.m. April 2, 2007

GARDENA, CA – Pushcart vendors are getting the boot.

A law taking effect April 28 makes it illegal to push vending carts in Gardena. The City Council approved the ordinance last week.

“They don’t have health permits. They use the public right of way to sell items. They contribute to trash in the area. They dump their stuff in the sewers,” Deputy Police Chief Edward Medrano said.
The vendors peddle ice cream, tamales, cut fruit, corn and other items.

Licensed vendors were allowed in the past, but police officers often found many of them didn’t bother to get licenses. Lt. Mike Saffell said about 31 unlicensed street vendors have been cited in the past two years.

The new law bans pushcart vendors – licensed and unlicensed.

“We still have licensed food-vendor trucks that go to work sites, etc. But those are regulated by the city and state,” Medrano said.

Tasha Cerda, president of the Holly Park Homeowners Association, said the pushcarts should have been banned years ago.

“It’s a long time coming,” Cerda said. “Peddlers are coming up and down the cul-de-sac. Our homes are worth $500,000 here. We’re spending too much money for our homes to have to see something like this.

“And what happens if you get sick? I can’t track the vendor down.”

I have been trying to get the Licenses of two different ice cream trucks, but I am always going some where and can’t. I would think that since soft serve isn’t a packaged item they would have to have a health inspection certificate. I know that ice cream stores are subject to inspections.
Open food items should be a big concern to everyone for the reasons Greg’s post mentioned. On top of that if the ice cream isn’t at the right temperature or the machine isn’t cleaned right you can get deathly ill.

Everyone, please be proactive on this, CALL THE POLICE DEPARTMENT and let them handle this.

This health issue is a very legitimate concern, particularly since such a large percentage of these illegal aliens go into food service. As Greg pointed out, legal aliens must provide a health certificate as part of the immigration process…there’s a REALLY GOOD reason for that.

“Dobbs: An answer for my critics
POSTED: 10:15 a.m. EDT, May 31, 2007
By Lou Dobbs
CNN

This commentary was first broadcast on “Lou Dobbs Tonight”

NEW YORK (CNN) — I’ve been, over the years, because of our reporting on controversial issues and my strongly held beliefs on those issues, attacked, and usually pretty vigorously, by both the left wing and the right wing of this nation’s media, both mainstream and otherwise, and of course the politicians that form the extremes of our political spectrum.

As a matter of fact, I’m regularly attacked by the right wing — the biggest business lobbyists in the country, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Bush administration — for my criticism of so-called free trade policies and outsourcing.

I’m regularly attacked by the left wing as well — the Southern Poverty Law Center, The New York Times, The Nation, MALDEF and MEChA — for my opposition to illegal immigration.

Today, The New York Times published a column that picks up where an advertisement — a paid advertisement in The Times, paid for by the Southern Poverty Law Center — left off two weeks ago.

Today’s New York Times column is primarily a personal attack on me, focusing on an ad-lib on the set of this broadcast uttered more than two years ago by Christine Romans on the number of cases of leprosy in this country — an unscripted ad-lib, not a report by the way. We’d never done a report on leprosy until we had to set this record straight a couple of weeks ago. That’s over four and a half years of reporting on that issue.

The second issue, accusing us of overstating the number of non-citizens in our federal prisons. That number reported on this broadcast three-and-a-half years ago.

Now, no one hates making a mistake, I assure you, more than I do. And on this broadcast, we do make mistakes — not often, mind you — but certainly enough to frustrate me mightily, and with barely tolerable frequency.

But today’s scurrilous personal attack from The New York Times columnist David Leonhardt, carrying the water of the Southern Poverty Law Center, also has the facts wrong.

He wrote that I said that “One third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal immigrants.” That isn’t what I said. I didn’t say anything close to it.

We reported that one-third of the federal prison population three and a half years ago were “non-citizens.” The columnist said the number was 6 percent. The exact number of the year in question was 29.3 percent for fiscal year 2001. And by the way, we’re putting up links on our Web site, loudobbs.com, so you can check the numbers for yourself.

I introduced that report three and a half years ago by saying the number of illegal immigrants in our prisons was increasing and the financial burden rising. Well, we had to go back and check, and because our correspondent no longer has his notes to support that statement, that the number of illegal immigrants within a prison population of non-citizens, I have to retract it here tonight, and I apologize to you for the necessity of doing so. But like I said, I do make mistakes.

Let’s look at a few other issues, however, raised by The New York Times, including that columnist’s statement that none of the enemies of the middle class, he said I said, “play a bigger role than illegal immigrants.”

Well, again, that’s just not true. I’ve made perfectly clear over the years that corporate power, expressed by lobbyists spending billions of dollars each year in Washington to influence both political parties and public policy, represents the greatest single threat to this nation’s middle class.

That columnist also said I gave air time to white supremacists, and mentions one by name: Madeleine Cosman, who wrote the article that Christine Romans used as a source for her later leprosy statement.

The fact is, I made a mistake, and I’ve said we would never have used her as a source if we had known of her controversial background two years ago, at the time of the offending ad-lib. But the columnist fails to note that his own paper wrote a glowing obituary of Madeleine Cosman when she died last year.

And the columnist writes that I suggested that new immigration reform bill would be the first step to a North American union. Nope. What I did say is that the proposed legislation, favored by President Bush and Senator Kennedy and others who are misguided, contains language in Section 413 that, if approved by Congress, would endorse and legitimize the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, which is the foundation of this administration’s efforts to create a North American union, and which would further threaten, in my opinion, our national sovereignty.

Well, as I said tonight at the outset, I don’t like personal attacks from both the left and the right wings, but I’m getting kind of used to it. I will assure you that we’ll continue to report on the nonpartisan independent reality that is too often overwhelmed by the ideologues in our national media, the left wing and the right wing.

And I’ll guarantee you this: Those attacks from the left and the right will continue. They perhaps may get even a little more energetic. And as long as they continue to do so, you and I can rest assured that we’re doing more right than wrong on this broadcast.”

So says you.

The report is published in a reputable medical journal, and has undergone peer review. Also, this isn’t the first report that has demonstrated the same trends. I suppose those were put together by racists too?

Why don’t you carry your open-borders, criminal-aiding self down to the BRUU, where they will believe your liberal clap-trap. In other words, go peddle your marxist one-world philosophy elsewhere, but if you are doing it from a pushcart, make sure you have a license.

The 7,000 leprosy cases claim has been thoroughly debunked. Lou Dobbs even retracted (after much criticism), and apologized for using Cosman as a source.

The concern is whether or not the person actually selling the product is the actual licensee, or is listed on the license. This is a public health issue, as much as it is an immigration issue. If these people had gone through the legal process required to enter this country, there would be fewer health concerns, as they would have been required to show immunization records at the time they requested their visa. Additionally, does the health department regularly inspect these carts, as a condition to remaining licensed

Another concern is the criminal backgrounds of these individuals. Since they are marketing to kids, prowling neighborhoods, unlicensed cart vendors could be pedophiles, or other criminals. Licensed people would have had a background check.

Thanks to HSM for taking the lead on this.

Anyone have any info on them?

We also have a truck come through, but he mostly sells soft serve ice cream cones.