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LA County Sidewalk Vending Cart Program
LA DEO
ABOUT THE GRANT
The LA County Sidewalk Vending Cart Program provides mobile food and merchandise vendors operating in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County or within the City of Los Angeles with free California Retail Food Code-compliant food carts, along with accompanying grant funding to support business formalization. Administered by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) in partnership with the Los Angeles City Community Investment Department (CID), the program distributes 341 fully permitted carts at no cost while supplies last. Vendors operating in the unincorporated areas of LA County may also qualify for a $5,000 grant to cover operational costs and permitting fees (available alongside fruit, hot-holding, cold-holding, or integrated grill cart awards, but excluding the raw-to-cooked cart), or for a $500 grant for merchandise-only vendors (selling goods exclusively, no food or beverages) to help with business registration and compliance costs.
The program distributes five types of California Health Code-compliant carts, each approved by the LA County Department of Public Health: Cold-Hold Carts (for commercially prepackaged ice cream), Cut Fruit Carts (for assorted fresh-cut or whole fruit and prepackaged low-risk items), Hot-Holding Carts (for prepackaged hot foods and precooked items from a permitted kitchen or commissary), Integrated Grill Carts (for reheating and serving precooked meat and items prepared off-site), and Raw-to-Cooked Carts (a newer, advanced cart equipped to safely handle, store, and cook raw proteins and ingredients on-site). Awardees receive multilingual technical assistance throughout the process to help secure the required Compact Mobile Food Operations (CMFO) Health Permit from the LA County Department of Public Health (with a 75 percent CMFO permit subsidy from DEO), along with the Sidewalk Vending Registration Certificate (for unincorporated areas) or the City of Los Angeles Sidewalk and Park Vending Permit, and related requirements such as the California Seller’s Permit, Food Handler Certificate, commissary space, and Fictitious Business Name (FBN/DBA) registration.
To qualify, applicants must be at least 18 years old, live in Los Angeles County, operate a sidewalk vending business in either the unincorporated areas of LA County or the City of Los Angeles, be self-employed and operate no more than one permitted cart at any given time, vend non-prepackaged food (for the food cart program), and demonstrate the ability to transport and store the cart in accordance with California Health Code regulations. Vendors in the City of Los Angeles must additionally demonstrate direct financial impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, since that portion of the program is funded by federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) recovery dollars. Applicants cannot have previously received a code-compliant cart or equivalent equipment from any other public or government source, and only one cart will be awarded per address or applicant.
The application is a two-phase process. Applicants first complete the online application for eligibility review, with notifications typically sent within 2 to 4 weeks. If conditionally accepted, applicants must then attend mandatory Sidewalk Vending and CMFO educational workshops, secure the required business documents, confirm cart transportation and storage logistics, submit the Public Health CMFO Permit Application, obtain the finalized CMFO Health Permit and sidewalk vending permit, and complete final cart pickup. The entire process from initial application to cart distribution typically takes up to 8 weeks. Applications are reviewed and scored monthly, with a lottery used when the number of qualified applicants at the same score exceeds the carts available in that month. Applications not selected automatically roll over for consideration in future months until all carts have been distributed.
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