The Taco Truck Wars

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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jose Ochoa has parked his taco truck on the same stretch of road since 1989, and, like scores of other lunch vendors around Los Angeles, he refused to pack it up Thursday, the first day for a new law requiring food wagons to move every hour or face $1,000 fines.

Mr. Ochoa said he defied the law because he could not afford to desert his customers and because the rule gives an unfair advantage to traditional restaurants while discriminating against the lunch trucks that have served East Los Angeles for decades.

When they approved the regulation last month, Los Angeles County supervisors, who govern the county's unincorporated areas, seemed not to realize that it would launch what has become known locally as the great Taco Truck Wars of 2008.

By the time the law took effect, nearly 9,000 people had signed a petition demanding its repeal. Several taco truckers said they would simply ignore it, and a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department indicated deputies wouldn't exactly be racing to enforce it.

In addition to fines, violators could be jailed for up to six months if they don't move their truck within an hour of parking it. Under the old law, they had to move every 30 minutes, but few did because the penalty was only $60.

In heavily Hispanic East Los Angeles, where eating carnitas, quesadillas, cemitas and other Latin-flavored delicacies purchased from a lunch wagon is practically a rite of passage, people were as hot about the issue as a plate of carne asada.

"What? That's terrible! That's terrible!" shouted Roy Mendoza, upon learning that the Tacos El Galuzo truck he and his family have been patronizing for years might have to start hopscotching around town.

"You mean we're going to have to start following this guy around?" Mr. Mendoza asked as he and his family waited for their order of tacos, burritos and quesadillas Wednesday night in front of Juan Torres' gleaming white truck just down the street from Mr. Ochoa's truck in the heart of East Los Angeles.

As far as Mr. Mendoza is concerned, Mr. Torres' truck, parked next to a car stereo store and a half-block from a McDonald's, is just another neighborhood restaurant, only with a half-dozen chairs placed on the sidewalk instead of inside a building.

In fact, Mr. Mendoza said, the truck is cleaner, serves better food and at about half the price than many of the nearby restaurants he's been in.