Catering trucks in Westwood provide a variety of cheap food, from corn-tortilla tacos to hamburgers with fries, but the truck operators may be affected by a recent Los Angeles county ordinance.
A city adoption and application of the county law usually happens but is not guaranteed, said Rick Espinoza, a clerk at the Office of the City Clerk.
Under the ordinance, catering trucks cannot stop at one stop for more than one hour, and if they do they can face up to $1,000 in fines or six months in jail.
The ordinance has faced a great deal of opposition, especially in East Los Angeles.
Currently, the city ordinance, which applies to Westwood, requires that taco trucks not stay in the same location for more than one hour, and not return to the same location for four hours.
The major difference between the current city ordinance and the recently passed county ordinance is the fines that catering trucks face. The city ordinance specifies that it will cost a catering truck $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second offense and $150 for the third offense if it is within 12 months of the first offense.
Peter Moieno, a catering truck driver for A la Carte Catering, said the situation is not pertinent to company trucks because they make multiple quick stops throughout the day.
The problem affects independent catering trucks because they generally make one stop and stay there from 6 a.m. until 2 or 3 p.m., Moieno said. Company trucks on the other hand generally stop for around 15 minutes and are going from stop to stop all day.
Moieno goes to the same stops each day around the same time, and all of his stops are in the Westwood area. One such stop is across from the School of Public Health at around noon, where his customers include people with button-down shirts and ties, and nurses and doctors dressed in scrubs.
Moieno also said the recent ordinances were passed because of the insistence of restaurants.
He said they have had some problems with on-site cafeterias at some of their stops, such as inquiries about who allowed them to park where they were stopped, but said that they were there before the cafeterias because they were selling food during the construction.
Moieno has been working for the same company and stopping at the same stops since 1989. He also said that contrary to what some restaurant owners believe, catering trucks do pay taxes.
Another A la Carte Catering truck stops at the construction site on Hilgard Avenue every morning around 9:30 a.m. Its customers are mainly those working on the construction site.
One such customer, Bob Contini, said he could see how it could be a problem if a catering truck were parked for hours on end, but not if it is parked for 15 to 30 minutes like the truck that stops at the construction site.
Jeff Hoese, another customer, said that this particular catering truck does not affect restaurant business.
“These guys would not be visiting a restaurant,” Hoese said.