The pause comes two years after enforcement began clearing illegal vendors from Scripps Park, Kellogg Park and The Children’s Pool.
Two years after the city of San Diego began enforcing an ordinance to ban street vendors from parks and public spaces, that enforcement has stopped and the vendors have returned en masse to La Jolla and other heavily trafficked areas.
Kellogg Park has seen an increase in vendors along the grass edge, Scripps Park is once again edged with multiple vendors along the shoreline sidewalks and mobile vendors line Coast Boulevard from Scripps Park to The Children’s Pool, often selling wares from parking spaces along the street.
The pause on enforcement and subsequent proliferation of street vendors in La Jolla’s shoreline spaces follows a recent litigation contending the impounding of vendors’ carts and materials was illegal.
A state appeals court in January determined the impounding and other consequences in the ordinance were too restrictive.
The court’s decision did not overturn the 2022 sidewalk vending ordinance but resulted in enforcement limits and pauses across the city.
The ordinance itself was a yearslong project to refine rules that were at stages criticized for being vague, unenforceable or infringing on First Amendment rights.
Once implemented, enforcement in La Jolla led to a great reduction in sidewalk vendors, praised by many locals.
San Diego “continues to enforce the ordinance where permitted by law, with a focus on protecting public health and safety,” the city wrote in a recent Instagram post. “In most areas, officers can issue administrative citations but are currently restricted from impounding carts or merchandise.”
The city will continue “defending the ordinance in court while enforcing it to the fullest extent allowed by law,” the post continued.
The ban on vendors was championed by many civic and community leaders in the years leading up to enforcement; many of those are now weighing in, lamenting the upsurge in vendors returning to coastal areas.
“I will fight to maintain every tool we need to keep public spaces public,” San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla, said in a newsletter.
Ann Dynes, speaking as a La Jolla resident and not in her role as La Jolla Parks & Beaches president, said the pause on enforcement and return of sidewalk vendors is “extremely disheartening.”
Dynes, who worked to replace the sod along the western edge of Scripps Park “where the vendors destroyed it during and after the pandemic,” added she is encouraged by city efforts to “correct the faults in the law identified by the court” but said she worried budget constraints would hamper further enforcement.
Former LJP&B president and current member Bob Evans shared Dynes’s concerns.
“Many of us in the coastal communities are not hopeful that there will be a restart any time soon of the city’s enforcement program,” Evans said. “We don’t see any current ability for the city to manage or address this issue, and further see the city’s shoreline parks and beaches falling into deeper neglect and blight.”
“Public safety is the number one priority,” LaCava said. “I will take every available measure to ensure that our neighborhoods do not return to the ‘Wild West’ days of an unregulated market.”
