Caridad Vasquez has lived in Los Angeles for 25 years, and sold Mexican food in Boyle Heights for 15 years, but she says she’s never seen anything like the citywide shutdown that the last few weeks have brought.
City leaders effectively put a moratorium on street vending last week, and even before that, many vendors like Vasquez were losing customers as Angelenos increasingly avoided contact with one another and stayed indoors. With April 1 around the corner, Vasquez, who is 60 years old, says she is growing increasingly worried about herself and other street vendors.
“We’re not going to be able to pay the rent,” Vasquez says, speaking in Spanish. If she’s safer at home and isn’t supposed to vend, she says: “Where is that money going to come from?”
