TTAC Attends Final Taco Truck Protest

by Jonny Lieberman

Published: May 15th, 2008

Well friends, by the time you read this, an era will have ended. A delicious era I might add. That's right, starting today– Black Thursday– taco trucks in unincorporated parts of Los Angeles will be required to move every hour, effectively putting them out of business. Since this insanity was first proposed SaveOurTacoTrucks.org has been leading the crusade to save the roach coaches with a battle cry of, "Carne Asada is Not a Crime" and lots of informal protests where folks show up and… eat tacos. Sadly, it was to no avail. Last night marked the final protest. I'd already written to my useless supervisor Gloria Molina and expressed my outrage at the banning of the trucks. I even tried arguing that forcing the trucks to move every hour was environmentally irresponsible. But all I got back was a form letter thanking me for my "quality of life" concerns. Failure in hand (so to speak), I figured the least I could do is head down to East LA and eat (more) tacos. The quiet, peaceful gathering was attended by about 100 taco and taco truck lovers (half of whom I suspect of being food bloggers). The worst part? The five carne asada tacos I ate were frigging scrumptious– I'm still salivating some two hours later. And now they're gone, all gone. As far as protests go, I haven't had this much fun since I marched with Mario Savio against Proposition 187 back in 1994. Hasta la vista trocas.

Jonny Lieberman

Cleanup driver for Team Black Metal V8olvo.

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4 of 13 comments

Pch101 on May 15, 2008
as good as the shuffling sounds, I’m betting the truck owners wouldn’t see the other guy’s spot being as “good” as their current spot. thus you’d end up in arguments over who will end up at their preferred spots for the high traffic times (noon-1pm). then you get into the issue of trucks that aren’t part of the agreement flying in and scooping up prime spots and your back to the current mess again. They need to learn from their brethren, the day laborers -- they would get more benefit from cooperating with each other than they would from competing against each other. Make an agreement about where each truck is going to go, and then stick to it.

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Landcrusher on May 15, 2008

I talked to a parking cop in Calgary one time. He told me that if his tire mark was no longer on the top of the tire, he counted the car as moved and marked it again. Maybe you should talk to the enforcers of the new law. I think you reported on what the fines are, but it might be worth it to ignore the law. The cops love tacos, and likely won't enforce this unless there is a complaint. Many of the trucks will likely get no complaints, and will then be unaffected.

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Mel23 on May 15, 2008

Didn't this start out as a 'quality of life' issue? Sounds to me like the quality of life just got worse for the taco hounds. In any case, 'quality of life' sounds like a GREAT example of arbitrary and capricious, which is a term lawyers can go to town on.

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Anonymous on May 15, 2008
NickR : May 15th, 2008 at 9:12 am What was the rationale for requiring them to move every hour? They don't pay taxes like the brick and mortar restaurants do. Or did you mean the what was the BS excuse given by the politicians who enacted this regulation.

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