AGENDA TITLE:
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Receive Presentation on Sidewalk Vendor Regulations and City Enforcement Practices (CA)
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MEETING DATE:
October 15, 2025
PREPARED BY:
William Baird, Deputy City Attorney and Katie Lucchesi, City Attorney
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RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Receive a presentation on sidewalk vendor regulations and City enforcement practices.
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Senate Bill 946 ("SB 946") took effect January 1, 2019, and was the first major state legislation focused on decriminalizing sidewalk vending. Consistent with SB 946, the City adopted Lodi Municipal Code (LMC) Chapter 9.19 on October 17, 2018, to match the allowed Side Walk Vending parameters in the new state law and this version of the LMC is still in place today.
Then in 2022, the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 972 ("SB 972"), further restricting the ability of cities to regulate food vendors in an attempt to reduce and streamline the process for food vendors to get the required county and city approvals for food vending permits. The bill provided that counties could approve a food cart design which meets safety requirements, in lieu of approving individually manufactured carts. The legislature's hope is that by easing the process to come into compliance with the law, it will incentivize greater compliance than currently exists. SB 972 also further limited the criminal enforcement of vending regulations to just warnings for the first offense and limited administrative citations.
However, the state law continues to evolve and Governor Newsom most recently signed Senate Bill 635 on October 7, 2025 ("SB 635"). SB 635 now also prohibits an agency or department that regulates street vendors or compact mobile food operations ("CMFOs"), or enforces sidewalk vending regulations, from collecting citizenship or criminal background data, and limits the activities that a local government can do related to immigration enforcement.
This presentation is intended to infor...
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