SAN DIEGO — Several restaurant owners gathered downtown Friday to voice their frustration with street vendors operating illegally in the Gaslamp Quarter.
"I’m very upset," said Mareuos Sitto, owner of Doner Mediterranean Grill. "It's got me to a point I want to shut down my place."
He said he's witnessed violence.
"Lately, it’s became worse we can’t talk to them. If we tell them to stay away from our businesses or move 30 feet away, they harass us, they want to fight us, we get into fist fights," he said.
Last year, the San Diego City Council banned street vending in the Gaslamp Quarter, East Village and parts of Little Italy.
Sitto said the city is not enforcing the rules.
Gaslamp Quarter Executive Director Michael Trimble tells CBS 8 vendors come in and set up right outside restaurants as well as outside Petco Park.
Trimble estimated there are as many as 100 carts set up a night. He said this is an organized group out of Los Angeles that is causing the problems. He said owners are losing a lot of business for many reasons.
"Tremendous amount of revenue and it also looks bad," he said. "If you’re having dinner at Greystone and have six hot dog vendors cooking in front of your patio, no one wants to do that."
According to Trimble, many of the vendors wait to set up after hours, when code enforcement is off the clock.
"This is not a group of mom and pops coming down to the Gaslamp to feed their families. This is a well organized group of people. All of their carts are the same. They have handlers up and down the street," he said.
Shane Harris, President of the with the Peoples Association of Justice proposed a night task force be established.
"This night task force would assess every street food vendor, to ask them whether they have their health permit," said Harris. "Every food vendor and restaurant has had to go through a health permitting process through the Department of Environmental Health and the Department of Health and Human Services Agency."
Trimble said law enforcement must be a part of the equation.
"The problem is they're very violent individuals. They're not open to giving their names, their business license. They don't want to talk to you," said Trimble.
CBS 8 caught up with Mayor Todd Gloria Friday morning.
"We’re not unaware of these challenges, to the contrary," said Mayor Gloria. "We’re very focused on this and we’re looking to bring change, particularly to the Gaslamp Quarter where we know it has a high volume of pedestrian traffic, particularly associated with games at Petco Park. If we need to get more aggressive in this case, we will be."
Late Friday morning, the mayor met with Trimble, restaurant owners and the San Diego Police Department. According to Trimble, the meeting went well. He tells CBS 8 he is optimistic more enforcement will be happening soon.