'Issued in Error': Bass Orders LAPD to Halt Criminal Citations for Street Vendors

The mayor's office says officers have stopped, and that the city is working to dismiss citations issued in error, after reporting on anti-camping citations to vendors near MacArthur Park in July 2026.

Police in Los Angeles must stop writing criminal citations to street vendors, Mayor Karen Bass has ordered, her office said on Thursday, August 27, 2026. The order was first reported by FOX 11 reporter Matthew Seedorff, and the mayor's spokesperson, Ilanna Morales, addressed it in a statement to LA Public Press. Neither account describes a written directive or a Los Angeles Police Department notice putting the change into effect.

The order lands a day after LA Public Press published its own reporting on the citations. That story, dated Wednesday, August 26, 2026, said LAPD officers had issued warnings and citations in July to vendors working near MacArthur Park, west of downtown Los Angeles. The officers used Section 41.18 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, the city's anti-camping rule. The outlet did not report a total number of vendors cited.

What is at stake for a vendor is a criminal record, which is the risk the mayor's office named in its own statement. Selling tamales or fruit from a cart is one thing; answering a criminal charge over where the cart stood is another.

Street vending is decriminalized across California, and cities are not allowed to write criminal citations for vending violations, the outlet reported. The citations near MacArthur Park were written under the anti-camping ordinance instead.

Morales told LA Public Press that officers have stopped writing criminal citations to vendors, and that the city is working to dismiss the ones "issued in error," so vendors do not carry criminal records for working.

That phrasing drew an objection from Sergio Jimenez, a community organizer with the Los Angeles nonprofit Community Power Collective. Jimenez told LA Public Press he was glad the citations were being dismissed, but said a department with legal support should have determined beforehand whether Section 41.18 was the correct code to enforce against street vending. "I don't think that's unintentional, and I think that's a big problem," Jimenez said, per the outlet.

The timing sits inside a campaign. Bass is up for re-election in November. Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman is running against her for mayor. On the evening of Wednesday, August 26, 2026, Raman stood before reporters in West Los Angeles to put forward her own vending plan, LA Public Press reported. The plan calls for more city support and protection for vendors, the outlet reported.

Bass has also drawn criticism for what she said about vendors at a candidate forum the previous week, hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association. She said vendors should not set up in front of restaurants, and compared that to encampments in front of restaurants or schools, according to the outlet.

Several things are not established in the published account. LA Public Press said it contacted the Los Angeles Police Department and Raman's campaign on Thursday, August 27, 2026, and had not heard back before publishing. The account does not say how many citations the city expects to dismiss, when the mayor issued the directive in writing, or whether the department has told officers in the field how to handle vending complaints now that Section 41.18 is off the table for vendors.

Source: lapublicpress.org, retrieved August 29, 2026.