During a mayoral runoff debate this week in Sherman Oaks, Mayor Karen Bass said, "I do not believe that you should have a food vendor in front of a restaurant, period," according to the Los Angeles Times. For a city built on late-night tacos and sidewalk loncheras, that comment landed like a threat to a way of life.

Taco carts and street vendors are part of what makes Los Angeles feel like Los Angeles. For many vendors, most of them immigrants and small business owners, these carts aren't a side hustle. They're often the only paycheck a family has. Pushing vendors away from busy areas near restaurants wouldn't protect anyone. It would just take income away from people already working hard to get by.

City Councilmember Nithya Raman, Bass's opponent in the mayoral runoff, offered a different vision at the same debate: bring street vendors into the city's regulatory system so vendors and restaurants can coexist instead of competing for the same customers. That approach protects small businesses on both sides without pushing anyone off the sidewalk.

This petition calls on Mayor Karen Bass to publicly commit that she will not pursue rules that push taco carts and street vendors out of busy areas, and to instead work toward fair regulations that let vendors and restaurants operate side by side.

Los Angeles's street food culture built this city's identity one taco at a time. It shouldn't be sacrificed over one debate-stage comment.

Sign the petition to demand Mayor Karen Bass protect LA's taco carts before more vendors lose their livelihoods.