Food Flies when the Fuzz Busts Illegal Edibles Vendors
Friday, June 3, 2005 16:45Los Angeles Downtown News reporter Chris Coates just filed an enterprising story about tagging along during a multi-agency bust of illegal vendors downtown. The online version of Police vs. Pirates also carries a photo, by photojournalist Gary Leonard, of cops hauling away felonious jugs of agua fresca in shopping carts. 
The most action-packed food-related excerpts:
As the uniformed officers rush into the alley, there are a few screams, the sound of shopping carts flipping over and the sudden smell of burning oil. When the officers appear, many of the food vendors simply abandon their wares, which are stocked in old shopping buggies and baby carriages. Some attempt to stash their goods on store roofs.
Others try to grab as much as they can carry in their arms and run, though several vendors drop some of their goods. Packages of meat, sour cream and green peppers fall to the pavement. The result is a trail of smashed food. “It doesn’t smell too good, does it?” Smith says after the mass exit.
No, officer, it sure doesn’t!
As things calm down, the group of burly police and BID helps load the “product,” as it’s called, into an open-topped truck that will take it to a dump. First in are the vats of grease, followed by the flattop stoves and then the coolers packed with chunks of ice. Food, some of it rotten, is spilling everywhere.
How hungry is everyone right now? Coates also wrote an interesting story last week about the Daily Grill’s $2M investment in it’s new restaurant on Flower downtown.
Photo credit: Gary Leonard, Los Angeles Downtown News
hexodus says:
June 4th, 2005 at 8:28 am
please, please, please tell me no bacon wrappeds were hurt in this altercation.
SoCalorie says:
June 4th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
It is my suspicion that many innocent food items were injured during this raid.
Scott M. says:
June 9th, 2005 at 2:44 am
Every time I walk past a humble vendor cooking those bacon-wrapped dogs my mouth waters…but no! It’s just too dirty! I can’t! But they smell so damn good…okay, I admit it, I did buy one once, coming out of the Auto Show, and it was good. Really really good. So there.
SoCalorie says:
June 9th, 2005 at 11:40 am
Hi Scott -
Take a dip in hexod.us’s bacon wrapped hot dog pool, if you dare…
http://flickr.com/groups/47726441@N00/
hexodus says:
June 10th, 2005 at 9:57 am
Although I sincerely wish that I had had that stroke(of genius), I do think that it was anniee who created that group.
VeggieGal says:
June 10th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
I have a friend who was vegetarian for close to 10 years when one drunken night he just had to have one of those bacon-wrapped dogs, and he hasn’t looked back since.
hundredflowers says:
July 19th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
beware! there is a bacon wrapped vendor in front of where i work. many a time have i watched as she made change or picked nose/butt right before wrapping bacon onto hotdogs with her bare hands.
also, DON’T BUY THE FLAN. It sits in the sun all day and flies land on it.
Jonah says:
July 19th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Lucky for me, I never buy the flan from anywhere, so I wont have to bother guessing where you work…
Busted! Your Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog is Illegal | So Good says:
May 21st, 2008 at 2:09 pm
[...] code for street vendors. Sadly, this is not a law that goes unenforced. There have been a number of different reports of food vendors being raided by [...]