455 is still alive…

The cartoon above is by Al Guerrero, one of our city’s up-and-coming cartoonists and a blogger at our new favorite site laeastsise.com. We also heard from our pals at York Blvd. who send along a “Save the Taco Trucks” online petition: www.saveourtacotrucks.org.

Meanwhile, our poll results are overwhelming– 88% of our readers, who represent a cross section of the taco lifestyle, are against Gloria Molina’s anti-taco truck law. So, vote in the poll, sign the petition, visit the pro-taco truck sites above.

After passing anti-taco truck legislation last night, the Board of Supervisors must now contend with mobile Taqueros who say they’ll resist the new ordinance. The Los Angeles Times has the following quotes in today’s edition:

They can try to move us, but we’re not going to go,” said Aleida De La Cruz, whose taco truck has been a family business for 20 years. “What are they going to do, take us all to jail?”

“I don’t think it’s a crime to sell tacos for a cheaper price than the established business,” truck owner Eugenio Sanchez told supervisors. “And the people are happy to see us because they say, ‘Finally, we have someone selling tacos.’ ”

There must be a reasonable balance between restaurants and taco trucks. We, the taco consumers are caught in the crossfire of this pointless war, and we call on the parties at hand to save the taco trucks! Sure, it’s no good when a mobile Taquero shows up right outside a taco shop, but there must be a better way to regulate things than this draconian measure, causing popular trucks to move every hour, wasting gasoline, hurting the environment and contributing to traffic problems. We call on the county leaders to think about the war they’ve started and to immediately seek a better solution.

The Los Angeles Times weighs in on the simmering debate over mobile taco wagons, commonly known as taco trucks, in East Los Angeles. The story frames the debate as one of vendors (taco trucks) versus merchants (restaurants). Featuring quotes from both vendors and merchants stating their cases, the story is light on the opinions of the people who matter most– the customers. Followers of the taco lifestyle, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Are taco trucks an illegitimate threat to traditional taco shops? Should taco trucks be forced to scurry around the city, changing position every hour? Vote below, then comment on this post.

The battle for Los Angeles’ Taco Truck providers heated up on Tuesday night as several taco truck operators stormed the council floor in order to bring a real debate to the staid chamber. According to the Pasadena Star News‘ intrepid city reporter Alison Hewitt:

A county ordinance targeting food vending trucks took some heat Tuesday when a couple dozen truck owners and their lawyer came to the Board of Supervisors meeting to oppose it.

The supervisors had given the ordinance tentative approval last week. But after the vendors’ protested Tuesday, the supervisors put off a final vote, which now could take place next week.

One vender vowed to sue the county unless changes are made to the proposed ordinance.

Specifically, the vendors oppose a 60-minute time limit on parking at one location, even though current county law prohibits such trucks from staying for more than 30 minutes in one spot. The vendors said 60 minutes is still not long enough.

Even worse, they said, was a provision that makes it a misdemeanor to park beyond the time limit. Now, county law calls only for citations for lagging lunch trucks.

The group’s attorney charged that the ordinance, as written, would not hold up in court.

County supervisors arranged an impromptu information session for the apprehensive truck owners, but their lawyer was barred from the session.

A few months ago I’m heading North on Lincoln Blvd. when, on an impulse, I jump out of my car to pixellate The Red Garter’ sex-appealing logos.

As soon as I see the closed door and the yellow notice my natural born protector-of-the-small hops back into my car, grabs my cell phone and contact the real estate broker. “Hello, I’m calling about The Red Garter in Venice. I was wondering if you could put me in touch with the seller because I write for an LA blog and would love to preserve a little bit of LA history by photographing the interior of this vintage “cocktail lounge” (before it gets recycled into another retail store.)” I keep the last portion to myself as I hear a voice in my head arguing that what I call “a vintage cocktail lounge” most people would call “a dive,” including the real estate agent at the other end of the line judging by the awkward silence. “The property’s been sold.” “So maybe I could talk to the new owner?” Upon my insistence, the broker reluctantly gives me her e-mail address, gets mean on me when I ask her to repeat it and hangs up before I have a chance to deliver a spirited: “Thank you for your commitment to…” She didn’t commit to anything but I nonetheless rush home to pen a passionate appeal to the new owner while I fail to swat the annoying buzz in my head that keeps repeating “Frankie, it’s a dive!”

This incident takes an unpredictable turn when I learn that at about the same time, a young woman by the name of Lauren Everett answers her own maternal call for the preservation of the human over the commercial when she sees an ad on Craigs List for the sale of an apartment complex where LA’s own dirty old poet, Charles Bukowski, once lived. Everett and other preservationists contact the Cultural Heritage Commission and manage to halt the sale of the East Hollywood property long enough to attempt to build a case for the designation as Historic Landmark of the DeLongpre Avenue bungalow where USPS worker Henry Charles Bukowski became, at 49, a full-time writer. Just as I assume my e-mail to the Red Garter’s new owner was dragged across the real pain in the esstate’s broker desktop and dumped in her Trash Bin, I don’t believe for one moment the author of “All the Assholes in the World and Mine” will get the seal of approval from the City and when I see a picture of the building in question I even wonder: “Why? It’s a…”

Photo by Phil McCarten for Reuters.

I look online for an answer and give to my dear Taco readers a story in quotes almost as unpredictable as a Bukowski title:

Blogger AF Duncan of Kung Fu Rodeo.”The impulse to make Bukowski’s home a monument comes from a feeling that he was a more accurate chronicler of the city than other writers, said David Fine, author of “Imagining Los Angeles: A City in Fiction.” Raymond Chandler, Aldous Huxley, Nathanael West and F. Scott Fitzgerald are far brighter literary lights, along with others who came here to toil as screenwriters. But they tended to portray an apocalyptic landscape of crime noir and empty celebrity. Bukowski grew up here and saw it from a less cynical, more authentic down-to-earth vantage point.”
(Continued)

From today’s Los Angeles Times:

The tile mural was meant to depict a quaint Sunday in Boyle Heights. Many angry residents say it makes their neighborhood out to be a crime-ridden dump filled with fat women, stray dogs, beer-swilling men and illegal street vendors. And don’t get them started about the piñata.

The artist who did the mural is Sandow Birk, who is an internationally recognized artist from Los Angeles. Ironically, his wikipedia page says “Stereotypes about… the brutality of L.A. police officers is often part of a work.”