City Council
Staff Report
From: City Manager
Report Type: CONSENT CALENDAR
Lead Department: Police
Meeting Date: December 11, 2023
Report #:2308-1963
TITLE
Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Chapters 4.10 (Licenses Obtained by Application to Chief of Police), 4.30 (Soliciting Funds), and Chapter 4.32 (Soliciting Information for Commercial Purposes); and Adding Chapter 4.12 to Title 4 (Business Licenses and Regulations) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Comply With Updates to the Law, Including 2018 Senate Bill 946 (Sidewalk Vendors). CEQA status – categorically exempt.
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council approve the attached Ordinance amending Chapters 4.10 (Licenses Obtained by Application to Chief of Police), 4.30 (Soliciting Funds), and Chapter 4.32 (Soliciting Information for Commercial Purposes); and Adding Chapter 4.12 to Title 4 (Business Licenses and Regulations) to comply with various updates to state and federal laws. The ordinance will implement a sidewalk vending program, eliminate licenses for solicitors and peddlers, and amend outdated laws related secondhand dealers.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This ordinance will bring the City into compliance with the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, Senate Bill (SB) 946, which provides specific provisions for how local governments may regulate sidewalk vendors, and it is intended that local governments will adopt local rules that meet those provisions. Staff recommends regulation around the definition, location and operations of sidewalk vendors for community health, safety, and welfare. The absence of an updated code that meets the provisions of SB 946 currently prohibits the City from enforcing certain behaviors that impact these conditions. Should City Council adopt this ordinance, staff recommends an education-before-enforcement approach and anticipates that will resolve most, if not all, compliance issues. The Police Department would be responsible for education and enforcement.
In addition, this ordinance will also update other aspects of Title 4 (Business Licenses and Regulations) in order to comply with changes to the law and practices in the past several years.
Licenses will no longer be required for solicitors and peddlers, as well as certain types of
mechanical amusements. Local law on secondhand dealers will now reference state law, which has largely taken over regulation of such businesses.
BACKGROUND
In 2018, the State of California enacted SB 946, which requires local agencies to allow sidewalk vendors. The law defines a sidewalk vendor as “...a person who sells food or merchandise from a pushcart, stand, display, pedal-driven cart, wagon, showcase, rack, or other nonmotorized conveyance, or from one’s person, upon a public sidewalk or other pedestrian path.” It further defines that a sidewalk vendor can be either stationary and/or roaming. See Gov. Code section 51036 et seq.
SB 946 prohibits local authorities from requiring a sidewalk vendor to operate within specific parts of the public right-of-way, except where that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. SB 946 specifies that perceived community animus or economic competition does not constitute an objective health, safety, or welfare concern. The law also prohibits restricting sidewalk vendors to operate only in a designated neighborhood or area, except where that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. A local authority may prohibit stationary sidewalk vendors - defined as vendors who vend from a single location - in exclusively residential areas, but shall not prohibit roaming sidewalk vendors, who stop moving only to complete a sale. A local authority may also prohibit stationary sidewalk vendors from vending in a park only if that local authority has signed an agreement for concessions that exclusively permits the sale of food or merchandise by the concessionaire.1
Staff has been responding to a recent modest increase in sidewalk vendor activity, predominantly during the evening and late-night hours in the downtown area. Complaints have focused on refuse left on private and public property, people dining in the parklets of closed restaurants, and carts blocking pedestrian traffic on a public sidewalk.
ANALYSIS
SB 946 provides an opportunity for the City Council to update the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) with regulations to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the community.
To align with State law, staff researched what other cities were legislating to address the issue.
Staff conducted an informal survey of the laws established by the cities of Burlingame, San Jose, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles. Each city created local laws, with how the laws are enforced varying by city. Palo Alto staff is confident that the terms of the proposed ordinance will address the concerns currently being reported, and that an education-first approach to enforcement is appropriate. If vendors remain non-compliant after education on the ordinance, the Police 1 SB-946 Sidewalk vendors 08/21/18- Senate Floor Analyses https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml# Department could issue an administrative citation as a last resort. Police Department response to these calls would be on a complaint basis only.
The proposed ordinance would include the following elements:
•Restrict the location of sidewalk vendors from being within 100 feet of:
▪Community markets such as swap meets and certified farmer’s markets ▪Locations with a temporary special event permit
▪Schools during instructional time
▪City-owned parks with concession contracts
•Restrict placement of operations where it would:
▪Impeded normal City business such as inspections
▪Block loading zones
▪Impede pedestrian access from curbside vehicles
▪Impeded ADA assistance features
▪Block access to crosswalks
▪Impede access to or the public’s enjoyment of City parks The City Manager may promulgate additional regulations regulating the size, placement, and operational requirements of sidewalk vendors. This will allow staff to address issues that may come up in the future, including those that relate to outdoor dining and parklets. The City has already developed regulations for parks in to protect the public’s enjoyment of the parks and prevent an undue concentration of vendors, as permitted by SB 946.2 If the City does not implement these changes to the municipal code and provide enforcement, the City could expect continued complaints about late-night sidewalk vendor activity. Refuse could continue to accumulate in or around public or private property.
Separately, several other sections of Title 4 (Business Licenses and Regulations) have been amended due to changes to state and federal laws, as well as to reflect current practices. First, licenses for solicitors and peddlers will no longer be mandated. Second, secondhand dealers will be subject to applicable state law, and local laws which are now redundant will be deleted. Third, mechanical amusement devices will no longer be regulated by the Police Department.
POLICY IMPACT
This work is consistent with the priorities the City Council adopted for FY 2023 and extended to FY 2024 around economic recovery and community health and safety. 2 See Parks and Recreation Commission packet
https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Public/CompiledDocument?meetingTemplateId=9916&compileOutputType= 1 FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT
The ordinance was prepared using existing City staffing resources. No additional staff or budget resources are necessary to adopt and codify the ordinance. If adopted, staff would be available to conduct community outreach regarding the new regulatory requirements; this too could be absorbed in the Police Department’s budget.
Police Department staff would be involved in the enforcement of this ordinance on a complaint basis, only because sidewalk vendor activity usually occurs on nights and weekends – beyond the customary work schedule of Code Enforcement staff in the Planning Department. Staff is not able to determine with any accuracy, how much time will be diverted from existing law enforcement activity, but it is not anticipated to be significant
Staff anticipates evaluating the enforcement needs of the program after the passage of the ordinance and, if appropriate, will return to the City Council with updates and additional resource needs through the budget process.
If the City Council were interested in directing staff from a department other than the Police Department to enforce this ordinance, additional fiscal impact analysis would be required. It is anticipated city enforcement would substantially impact the City’s Code Enforcement program, require additional managerial support in Planning, and have significant resource impacts to the City Attorney’s office.
The Municipal Fee schedule includes fees for pushcart vendor permit applications, but no applications have been received in the last five years, so the Department has not budgeted for the revenue nor collected the fees. The fee schedule will be updated in the next budget cycle to remove the pushcart fees. Staff is not recommending application fees for the newer sidewalk vendor activity at this time.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
The Parks and Recreation Commission met on May 25, 2021 and formed an ad hoc committee to draft regulations under the guidance of AB 9463. On September 28, 2021, the Commission approved the proposed regulations and recommended the City Manager approve the updated Open Space and Park Regulations to add new Regulation R1-41 (“Sidewalk Vendors”) (Attachment B) upon the City Council’s adoption of a sidewalk vendor ordinance.4 3 Parks and Recreation Commission, May 25, 2021, Item #4 https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Public/CompiledDocument?meetingTemplateId=9944&compileOutputType= 1 4 Parks and Recreation Commission, September 28, 2021, Item #5 https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Public/CompiledDocument?meetingTemplateId=9916&compileOutputType= 1 ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Adoption of this ordinance is categorically exempt under CEQA guidelines 15301 (existing facilities) and 15323 (normal operations of facilities for public gatherings).
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment A: Ordinance Amending Chapters 4.10 (Licenses Obtained by Application to Chief of Police), 4.30 (Soliciting Funds), and Chapter 4.32 (Soliciting Information for Commercial Purposes); and Adding Chapter 4.12 to Title 4 (Business Licenses and Regulations) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code
Attachment B: Park regulations - Recommended by the PRC September 28, 2021 APPROVED BY:
Andrew Binder, Police Chief