A Mexican tamale vendor named Candelaria Gonzalez appeared in court on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 30, to face charges of illegal peddling. Her case had been dismissed in April because the ticketing officer hadn’t shown up. But at the request of neighborhood activists on the northwest side, the city had reinstated the charges against her.
The city had already tried to put the eloteros out of business, in 1997, but a last-minute protest won public sympathy and prevented legislation from passing in the City Council. Since then, however, vendors have been ticketed and occasionally tried for illegal peddling, according to Campos. Now Alderman Mell was pushing a new ordinance, cosponsored by Edward Burke and three Hispanic aldermen. That law would ban sellers of corn, ice cream, and other food from conducting business within 200 feet of a residence, church, or school. All vendors would be required to park their carts in front of businesses on commercial streets–and they would need permission from the businesses to set up shop.
“A lot of the people who are getting sick are part of their own background, and they don’t want to tell on them.”
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But, the Sun-Times’s Sue Ontiveros pointed out, the mom-and-pop establishments that you say you’re representing haven’t complained.
Outside Ligas continued to shout over the crowd. “This is not politics,” he said. “This is health. Campos is able to stand here and call me a racist, and no one says anything about it. He’s running a circus here. This needs to be handled by the courts, the police, the City Council, not out here by these…people. He’s shoving me. He’s calling me a racist. And nothing’s being done.”
The crowd started chanting, “Vuela, racista! Vuela, racista!”
“Nick,” she said, “they’ve arrested Campos.”
