There has been a huge public concern about food vendors cropped up on the sides of roads in Stanislaus County. Having been a longtime resident of Stanislaus County (since 1966) I can say we didn’t see this occurring in the 1970s and 1980s. With the influx of Mexican immigrants accelerated under Biden’s four years in office, peddling has increased and makes Stanislaus County look like a Third World country where there are no standards for safety and cleanliness. I’ve seen pottery figures laid out on the sidewalk near the Ceres Walmart Supercenter and alongside Mitchell Road at Finch Road like this is some marketplace in Tijuana. It’s fairly common for someone to approach you in a big store parking lot asked if you want to buy strawberries.
Dp you remember what happened on the west side of the county on Jan. 21, 2025 on Highway 33 near Crows Landing Road? Elvis Zepeda pulled over to get food from a vendor on the side of the highway and his two-year-old son Benjamin ran into the roadway and was fatally struck by a BMW driven by a 19-year-old. It was accidental but the result of unsafe location to be selling food. The driver of the car stopped to help but an irate Zepeda fetched a gun from his vehicle and shot at the man’s car. Zepeda was later arrested and booked on charges including attempted murder, possession of an illegal firearm, and possession of a controlled substance.
Chances are that child would be alive today if it weren’t for a roadside peddler.
There have been reports of folks selling food in Ceres on dusty shoulders and dust flying everywhere and drifting over the food.
Aside from this, county law enforcement and the district attorney say that many of those roadside peddlers selling flowers and strawberries and food are actually pawns of the cartels who smuggled them into the country. Working pays off their debt, many who owe thousands of dollars. If they don’t pay, who knows what will happen to them?
One woman named Veronica stood before supervisors presenting her faulty logic and was apparently more concerned about vendors or her stomach than public good – even after seeing photos of some nasty cooking conditions including a chicken standing on ears of corn and a bucket of putrid and rancid substance found at one roadside vendor.
She went on to say she has “gotten diarrhea and vomiting out of, you know, restaurants, never from a taco truck.”
The last time I got sick from a restaurant was around 1999 when I got some bad fries at McDonald’s at the Vintage Faire Mall when they were located there. And I can’t say I would never get sick from food served at a pop-up vendor because I never do business with them. Sanitation is not a quality I think of with pop-up tent vendors. Food poisoning pays no respect to ethnicity.
But it does bother me to see folks who may or may not be legal immigrants setting up shop on the side of a road, many with no permits, taking away business from the legitimate businesses who go to great pains and funding to start a business in a brick and mortar.
Veronica’s comments made me believe her objections are based on a pervasive progressive ideology that the good old white boys are trying to make it hard on the brown folks. She wants proof, stats about who are shills for cartels and who are the legitimate mamis and papis peddling food, and insinuated the district attorney was inventing a situation from thin air.
She goes on to suggest – with no backup information, a standard that she holds the county to – farmers who apply pesticides without permits only “get a slap in the wrist.”
Veronica noted that the state has legalized street vendors. True, a few years back the liberal Democrats catered to the underclass by allowing street vending, something I disagreed with. But the caveat is that they obtain the APPROPRIATE HEALTH and BUSINESS PERMITS!
What was particularly off-base was her characterization of a Bee report of a peddler who was arrested “for not saying his name” and quickly changed that to “or he lied about his name.” Big difference for it is illegal for ANY person to give a false identity to an officer. And why lie about your name unless you are either wanted on warrant or you are in the country illegally, which is still a crime?
She just had to throw in Orange Man Bad when she suggested “we already know the political atmosphere that we’re in right now with immigration and the enforcement of immigration and the violation of our rights by Immigration. People are afraid. So enforcing and coming in there is only gonna create more problems, even for these mom and pops.”
First, ICE has a right to detain and deport illegal aliens despite how long they have lived in the shadows. No rights are being violated. So if there is fear then the fear is justified if you are on U.S. soil and you snuck over the border in a cartel wagon or by foot or if you overstayed your visa.
Per Veronica: “There is a law that has been passed to decriminalize, and enforcement will only continue to criminalize it.”
Hold on, did she forget about the part about the requirement to be licensed as a business and be permitted by the Department of Environmental Resources?
The problem is that education has not worked. County officials have made it clear. These vendors have been told to get into compliance and they aren’t bothering to. You can educate all you want but sometimes it requires tough enforcement.
Just because something is struggling to make it doesn’t mean they can thumb their nose at the law.
* * * * *
Boy, aren’t we such lucky folks to keep paying higher prices at the pump made possible by the single party that has a hold on policies as strong as lockjaw on a tetanus victim?
Today our gas tax rises again, this time to 63.4 cents per gallon, the highest in the nation. The increase is automatic under Senate Bill 1, the 2017 law that raises the tax every year without a vote of the Legislature.
When SB 1 passed, California’s gas tax was 27.8 cents per gallon. In less than a decade, it has more than doubled and will continue increasing automatically every July.
The gas tax is only part of the cost. On top of the excise tax, Californians pay roughly 13 cents in state and local sales taxes, about 24 cents for cap-and-trade, roughly 20 cents for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and another 2 cents for the underground storage tank fee.
Altogether, state taxes, fees and mandates add about $1.20 to every gallon of gas sold in California, costing the average driver hundreds of dollars each year. That’s before accounting for global supply and demand or state policies that have contributed to refinery closures and reduced in-state fuel production.
California’s energy affordability crisis is a choice. Assembly Republicans have repeatedly fought to suspend the gas tax and provide relief to working families.
Sacramento Democrats said no, and chose higher taxes.
Why, oh why does the majority of voters keep electing them? It’s akin to bending over to take a paddle and cry, “Thank you, sir, may I have another!” THWACK!
Thank you, sir, may I have another?” THWACK. You get it, or maybe you haven’t had enough pain yet.
* * * * *
Well, the American experiment turns 250 this week and a combination of the Fourth of July being on Saturday means the illegal fireworks will be off the charts.
Year after year officials make all the threats and cage rattling they can but year after year the lawless among us thumbs its nose at the wellbeing of all and decided they matter more. Well, that’s what it amounts to, doesn’t it? “I don’t care if my mortars set your shake roof on fire or ignites a grass fire on the side of your yard and burns down your fence, my aerial display will be the envy of the party of beer chuggers down the block and make the kids squeal with delight.
Some folks need to grow up.
You can also show your patriotism in safer ways, like attending the Fourth of July Parade in downtown Modesto or watching the fireworks show at John Thurman Field, Woodward Reservoir or at Lake Don Pedro.
This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com
