A month later, many of the MacArthur Park vendors are still gone

Seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset, dozens of street vendors, the majority of them Latino, would set up outside of the Metro’s Westlake/MacArthur Park Station and throughout South Alvarado Street. 

Today, outside of the Metro station plaza and on Alvarado Street, from 6th to 7th Street, the vendors are gone. When I walked around the two-block radius looking for any street vendors to interview for this story, it felt and looked like a ghost town of street vendors. 

What was once a heavily packed vendor zone, selling everything from prepared food like hot dogs and fresh fruit to non-food items, including clothing, phone accessories, flowers, artwork, handmade crafts and souvenirs, is now empty and blocked with long metal fencing. 

But the metal fence is not the most worrying part for locals; it’s that the removal date for the metal fencing has not been officially determined.

Mayita, a street vendor from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, who sets up between 6th Street and Maryland Street, a vending zone that has not been affected by the fencing, said the blockage of the two-block radius has not only affected the vendors that have been directly displaced but also the vendors and local businesses that still remain.  

“Business has been slower,” Mayita said. “Right now, it’s past midday and we haven’t sold much.”

Mayita, who only wished to share the nickname given to her by her friends, said no one had told vendors about the fencing before it went up. “[For] all of us who are here on this side of Alvarado, [they] haven’t told us to move. We hope they don't,” she told CALÒ News. 

Mayita was the only person who agreed to speak to me that day. Throughout the time I spent walking up and down Alvarado Street, there was one entity whose presence was quite constant and obvious: the LAPD. During the one hour that I spent around MacArthur Park, I saw ‌nine police cars patrolling the area.  

The city installed the mental fencing after a mass shooting in late January, which left several people injured. Jose Daniel Amaya, 27, was charged with five counts of willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder for the shooting. If found guilty, he could face life in prison.

A month after that incident, the metal fencing is still up with no signs of it being taken downanytime soon. 

In a written statement, Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass, told the LA Times earlier this month that the metal fencing “has helped disrupt the illegal sales of drugs and weapons along with halting the associated violence in the area.” 

There is no denying that MacArthur Park, just west of Downtown Los Angeles, has been synonymous with high crime and drug rates. The fifth and most recent L.A. County Homeless and Mortality Report, published last May, showed that from 2014 to 2022, the number of annual people experiencing homelessness (PEH) deaths increased by over three and a half times, while the annual mortality rate roughly doubled. 

According to the report, the highest concentration of PEH deaths occurred in Downtown L.A. and the MacArthur Park/Westlake area. In 2021 and 2022 combined, the overdose mortality rate among PEH was 40.5 times greater than the rate in the total L.A. County population. Those deaths were again concentrated largely in Downtown L.A. and the MacArthur Park/Westlake area. 

At the same time, locals and supporters of street vendors acknowledge the region as a cultural epicenter, where hundreds of undocumented business owners, single mothers and working-class individuals attempt to earn a living through the profession of street vending. 

Earlier this month, members of the L.A. City Council unanimously directed the Bureau of Street Services, Economic and Workforce Development Department to create a report that would look at ways to enhance the county's and city's current street vending permit procedures as well as the city's laws. This comes after the city’s Bureau of Street Services reported that last September only about 1.4% of the estimated 50,000 street vendors had permits. 

Naomi Villagomez Roochnik,  spokesperson for Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who overlooks the Westlake Macarthur Park/Westlake area, said Hernandez has been actively trying to bring resources to the area to address both the crime and drug rises and at the same time protect and respect the rights of the vendors. 

“Councilmember Hernandez is working with the Mayor to determine the fence timeline and next steps,” Hernandez’s office told CALÓ News. “She is committed to ensuring that interventions do not come at the expense of vulnerable communities and looks forward to collaborating with the mayor to ensure that the long-term investments that are needed for MacArthur Park are made.”

Regarding the diminishing street vendor presence in MacArthur Park, the offices also said that their “field team has heard directly from vendors that reports of ICE activity nearby have spread quickly, leading many vendors to stay home out of fear.” 

“This is exactly why Councilmember Hernández fought to codify L.A. as a Sanctuary City and continues working to ensure that undocumented Angelenos, including vendors, are protected,” her office said in a written statement.

This past weekend her office also hosted a cleanup and resources fair in MacArthur Park, where volunteers, along with State Senator María Elena Durazo and State Assemblymember Mark González, cleaned major corridors around the park, including Alvarado Street, Wilshire Boulevard, 3rd Street, 6th Street, 8th Street, Park View Street, and James M. Wood Boulevard, picking up trash from sidewalks, curbs and public areas.

Still, no further details on what next steps for the hundreds of displaced vendors were given. 

This is a developing story and CALÓ News will continue to bring any updates regarding the vendors in the MacArthur Park area.