A year after Monterey's vending ordinance took effect, some Wharf vendors still won't comply
The city's amended sidewalk vending rules set 8-by-4-foot spaces at the foot of the Wharf. Two longtime vendors say they will keep setting up outside them.
More than a year after Monterey's amended sidewalk vending ordinance took effect, the city's attempt to organize street vending at the foot of Old Fisherman's Wharf remains only partly enforced, and at least two longtime vendors say they have no intention of complying.
The council approved the amended ordinance on Aug. 5, 2025, and it took effect Sept. 4, 2025, as Ordinance 3708. It created designated vendor spaces, each 8 feet by 4 feet, about 13 of them at the foot of the Wharf, where vendors of handmade goods have long set up tables along the pedestrian flow.
Vendors Jim Burns and India Weeks have refused to move into the designated spaces, arguing the ordinance unfairly restricts where they can sell.
"We'll just keep setting up. They don't have any way to enforce their ordinance," Burns said, according to the Monterey County Weekly.
Iglesias defended the vendors' handmade goods. "Everyone I talk to loves us, and the handmade art we sell. We've never done anything wrong," Iglesias said.
The city receives about 33 vending applications a year, a sign of steady demand for sidewalk space in the city's busiest tourist corridor.
The ordinance sits against the backdrop of SB 946, the state law that decriminalized sidewalk vending and limited how cities can regulate vendors, pushing cities like Monterey toward designated-space systems rather than outright bans.
City officials have not said when, or whether, full enforcement will begin at the Wharf.
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