‘This Is Screaming Red Alert’: West Hollywood Residents Address Public Safety Commission Over Street Vendor Crisis

West Hollywood’s Public Safety Commission heard an earful Monday night. Business owners, residents, and nightlife workers lined up to address the street vendor crisis days after a turf war brawl in the Rainbow District. WEHOonline’s story, published earlier that day, was referenced from the dais.

Commissioner Kimberly Winnick said it pretty plainly.

“I know many of us saw the article today in WEHOonline,” Winnick said.

They had. And they came prepared.

Paul Nicholls, a partner at Beaches Tropicana, addressed the commission first. He described what he sees from his door every weekend night in the Rainbow District.

“They basically try to block any exits and try to block any kind of public movement, because they essentially want to try and sell people the hot dogs,” Nicholls said. “They’re blocking the emergency exits from the club with very flimsy carts that are full of hot grease and have somewhat explosive tanks of propane gas under them.”

He said the danger compounds when someone gets ejected.

“When people get ejected from a club, they’re not exactly walking in an orderly fashion,” Nicholls said. “It very easily could happen that somebody gets ejected and either falls into one of these boiling containers of grease, or pushes somebody standing near the exit who falls into it.”

He returned to the payment trail WEHOonline reported on earlier in the day.

“They all came on one truck. Now it’s two trucks,” Nicholls said. “Maybe that’s why you’re starting to see turf fights. All their Venmos, all their PayPals, all their payment forms go to the same place. It’s not going to separate places.”

And to the child working the vendor cart.

“We saw a girl out there the other day, and one of my dancers asked her how old she was, and she said she just turned 14,” Nicholls said. “It’s a situation where people are being exploited, and it’s putting our citizens in a very unsafe place.”

A West Hollywood resident followed Nicholls to the podium. He’d done his own count on Saturday night.

“I counted from Tropicana to the Abbey on each side,” he said. “Forty of those hot dog carts. It’s not just a dozen.”

He said the grease hazard isn’t theoretical.

“I personally slipped and fell and had to go to the hospital, in front of Beaches Tropicana, from the grease,” he said. “This is a serious safety issue.”

He said what he saw didn’t look like independent operators.

“These are not a few independent people just trying to make a living,” he said. “They set up in groups and claim high traffic areas. People are spilling out into the street. We know what happens when people are intoxicated on a fast street. Somebody’s gonna get hit by a car and somebody’s gonna die.”

Stephanie Harker raised a concern several others echoed.

“One of them who’s working is a 14-year-old girl, and they say they have handlers,” Harker said. “That’s just a nice word for a pimp, if you ask me. Are these girls being trafficked? We don’t know. I don’t know how we find out, but it might take going higher up the ladder.”

Cathy Blavis pointed to an enforcement tool she said the City isn’t using.

“In terms of them blocking sidewalks and blocking exits, that’s an ADA compliance issue,” Blavis said. “I don’t want you all to sit up there and feel your hands are tied, because they really are not.”

Kyle Brazeal, a West Hollywood resident and candidate for City Council, has raised vendor concerns at previous meetings. He challenged the framing around police presence and results.

“It’s time for the City to act, and focus more on solutions rather than excuses for why we can’t act,” Brazeal said. “KTLA is talking about West Hollywood not being in control of our own streets. We need to stop pretending like it doesn’t exist.”

What the City Can and Cannot Do

Danny Rivas, the City’s director of community safety, laid out the framework for commissioners and the public.

The City’s sidewalk vending ordinance already outlines areas where vendors cannot be. It doesn’t designate where they should be. The only enforcement tool is the administrative fine. Vendors know the code enforcement uniform on sight. They don’t wait.

“The minute they see code enforcement, they start walking away and fading the area,” Rivas said.

Rivas told commissioners something that hadn’t been made public before. Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Health suspended street vending enforcement last September. The County cited concerns about federal immigration enforcement.

“As of September of last year, the county did place a pause and suspended the enforcement of street vending because of concerns over federal immigration enforcement that’s been occurring,” Rivas said.

Health inspectors are the only officials in Los Angeles County with authority to condemn unsafe food on the spot. That option is currently off the table. Unregulated food safety on the streets of West Hollywood. Are you serious? 

The City has been in talks with the County Health Department about a potential MOU that would fund dedicated health inspectors for enforcement operations. Rivas said those conversations are continuing.

Vendors typically show up around 10 p.m. Peak operation hits around midnight. They arrive by van. The City has been logging plates.

“In many instances, rental cars,” Rivas said.

Winnick pushed on whether a private-public partnership could fill the gap. Could businesses fund a dedicated code enforcement presence on weekend nights.

“What you need is a code enforcement person who can actually write citations,” Winnick said. “It seems like there ought to be that kind of answer.”

Rivas said it’s something the City is actively exploring. He added that for Pride weekend, the entire code enforcement team partners with sheriff’s deputies as a dedicated vendor detail, working until 4 a.m. all three days.

‘Screaming Red Alert’

Nicholls returned to the podium near the end of public comment.

“Danny and Omar,” Nicholls said, referring to Rivas and Sgt. Omar Luevano by first name. “That’s how often I deal with these two. They’re aware of it. They want to do something about it. But I see how Jason, one of the code enforcement officers, gets completely demoralized. They are laughed at by people who are actively breaking the law.”

He said the operations aren’t what they look like.

“It’s not an education issue,” Nicholls said. “You can’t educate somebody who doesn’t want to learn. They’re doing what they’re told. They’re being dropped off in vans, told exactly where to stand, told not to listen if someone tries to move them, and then being picked up in a van.”

He raised the environmental enforcement angle.

“California is very environmentally aware,” Nicholls said. “I don’t know what would happen to me if I started pouring grease from the club down the sewer drain, but I have a feeling there’d be some consequences. That can’t be legal.”

He returned to the child labor point.

“I don’t think I can employ 13 and 14-year-olds to work for me in the nightclub,” Nicholls said. “I feel like there maybe could be some action with regards to that.”

He closed with a warning.

“This is one of those things that is screaming red alert,” Nicholls said. “I just don’t want the next conversation to be about what happened in West Hollywood when it got out of control. When somebody got their face burned, or something even worse. If there is stuff that restricts the City, there has to be another way.”

The commission took no formal action on street vending Monday night. The item was not on the agenda.