The West Hollywood City Council meeting is today, November 3rd, and one thing not on the agenda is Council member Danny Hang’s Hot Dog Initiative to stop the illegal hot dog and other street vendors from illegally crowding the sidewalks. Council member Hang’s proposal made at the 10/20/25 city council meeting would codify rules for the illegal vendors selling alcohol on the streets outside of the bars, or gangs of hot dog vendors surrounding businesses and impeding sidewalks.
Hang’s item appeared simple. But at the 10/20 meeting Council member Meister left early due to a medical issue. Meister requested several items to be tabled. This hot dog item was not one of them. Removing illegal vendors seemed like a slam dunk.
The item as presented: “Direct Staff to review and evaluate options for amending the Municipal Code to provide additional tools and enforcement authority over unpermitted and unlicensed sidewalk vendors in the City.”
Hang led off with his presentation: ” I’m here to present item F2, addressing unpermmited and unlicensed sidewalk vendors. Colleagues this item is about something pretty simple, but deeply important. Keeping our community safe, protecting public health and ensuring fairness for everyone who does business in West Hollywood. For the past year the city has received numerous complaints of unpermitted and unlicensed sidewalk food vendors causing public heath and safety other concerns when operating on the sidewalks of our community. As we are all aware every permitted food business is required to go through a process to obtain their business license which includes passing the Los Angeles County Public Health inspections to insure sanitation and safety protocols are followed. There requirements exist to protect people from getting sick to prevent foot contamination and also to make sure that the food being sold is safe to consume. When a sidewalk vendor operates without a health permit or city license that poses very real health and safety risks, not just for the people who buy the food but also for the broader public. On top of that unpermitted sidewalk vendors have been observed and complained about setting up in prohibited areas and blocking sidewalks which present pedestrian safety hazards.
I believe our own Capt. Fanny Lapkin said tonite, some have been seen selling alcohol illegally to people in the community including minors. Right now the cities enforcement tools are limited due to changes made in state law which only allow for civil fines to be issued which are often ignored by unpermitted street vendors. This items simply asks staff to come back with options that might include impounding unpermitted food carts, restricting certain locations, or other legal tools that strengthen our ability to protect public health, public safety and the fairness of our business environment. This is not about criminalizing vending or punishing people. It is about creating a level playing field and ensuring that everyone operates under the same standards that keep our community safe.
West Hollywood prides itself to on being welcoming, inclusive and entrepreneurial. But those values have to be paired with accountability and public safety. I respectfully ask for your support on this item so that we can take a thoughtful balanced approach that our residents and supports our businesses and keeps our public spaces safe and accessible for everyone.
Colleagues, staff is here to answer any questions.”
Then the public comment. Only one. Genevieve Morrill, President and CEO of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “I want to thank you SO much for bringing this forward”. “it could not come sooner.”
Then Vice Mayor Heilman spoke. “I wanted to thank council member Hang for bringing this forward, I fully support it”
Council member Erickson challenged the basis of the inquiry questioning the reports of the events. “are most of them english speaking? is there a communication barrier? how many complaints are there? [Director of Public Safety Danny Rivas explained about 5 different reports each weekend]. are they engaging into criminal activity? [Capt. Fanny Lapkin explained the report of illegal sale of booze to minors].
Council member Hang then buckled, and moved to table the item until the entire council could be present. Mayor Byers sounded suprised. Vice Mayor Heilman, followed. “If council member Hang wants to table this item until council member Meister is back, I’m fine with that.”
Mayor Byers continued “the county has suspended its enforcement of public health in light of the immigration raids, because it feels like an unnecessary expenditure of resources at a time when the predominant operators who are among the immigrant community are already among extreme circumstances. Given the counties acknowledgment taking more measures, more staff time, to put something to the immigrant community that i certainly heard in this item.”
Council member Hang replied, “As a child of immigrants, as a child or refugee immigrants, I completely understand. But this isn’t about immigration at all. This is about public health and public safety. If we have operators to pay lots of money and fees why should they be overburdened with the rules when other people aren’t following them?
Hang continued: “I believe the intent of this item was to direct staff to explore options to come back, nothing is being decided tonite. What will be decided is when the 5 of us look at what staff comes back for this item. So that was the intent of this item, there was no other intent.”
Council member Erickson chimed in: conceding the motivation for his position. “I don’t believe the argument that businesses on the strip are losing millions of dollars to hot dog vendors, if you are then we have to talk about alot of other stuff. However, working for a Latino immigration organization i cannot in good conscience vote for this in its current form. We all agree that it is an issue but when you look at the idea of impounding someones cart as a potential issue that is their livelihood. I’d like to find a pathway to a solution that decrims the idea of taking away livelihood and promotes education, accountability and the better part of what is a model policy of what can be used.”
Mayor Byers: Council member Hang we will let you have the final word on. your item.
Council member Hang concluded: “I think my colleagues up here — I appreciate what your saying but your expressing concerns without any actual answers in sight. You don’t know what staff is going to come back with. For all you know staff can come back with a solution saying after 30 citations they will impound the cart, or maybe impound the cart may not be an option. Just because its listed in the staff report it doesn’t mean that would be what staff is recommending. this is just directing staff to come back with options for the full council to decide, not just me, its going to be 5 people to decide what we think is fair, what we feel is right with what staff brings back to us. Thank you.”
The item was tabled in a 4-0 vote. It is expected to come back on the November 17th city council agenda per city manager David Wilson’s comments.
Just goes to show that Erickson couldn’t care less that some unlicensed vendor is setting up their cart up in front of tax paying licensed food sellers who pay rent in this city. Even worse, I don’t think these bacon wrapped low grade hot dogs are kosher.
You don’t need a municipal ordinance to arrest sidewalk vendors selling alcohol; it is against State law. We already have laws regarding side walk food vendors, so this just seems redundant. I suspect the City Attorney may have reviewed these proposals and found them unnecessary and perhaps confusing.
“the county has suspended its enforcement of public health in light of the immigration raids” WTF. Public health…who needs it. First time I’ve ever agreed with Hang.
How interesting that councilmember Hang used danger to pedestrian safety and lack of access for pedestrians as one of his reasons for proposing this bill when he has continuously championed the use of scooters, E bikes, and delivery robots, which are huge dangers to pedestrians. Seems like hypocrisy once again rears its ugly head in our city council.
As the deportations continue……there will be less and less of these.
We can’t rely on local politicians to ever to the right thing especially when these groups vote for them (they want the free stuff). So a good idea like this will go nowhere.
Oh girl. You’re pathetic