They're fast, the flavor is always there, and they always treat you good.

I like the bolillo they use on the torta is really nice and tender, soft.

It has an easy bite to it.

For over 140 years, street vendors hawking Mexican food have been a staple of life in Southern California.

Horse-drawn tamale wagons turned into taco trucks, turned into pop-up tents, and eventually hipsters caught on and these trends went national.

But even as Southern California became famous worldwide for its street food scene,

government officials have vamped up their war on it.

I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times. It's Thursday,

January 20th, 2022. Today we get get into this carnitasada conundra.

In a time where Mexican food is more popular than ever, why are tacos still considered a crime?

And what do the vendors themselves have to say? I've been eating from taco trucks my entire life.

Man, I'm so old.

I still remember when you can buy four tacos for

a buck off Olympic Boulevard in East L.A. and get free or chata with it. It wasn't until I became

a reporter, though, that I realized there was a stigma attached to them. Haders gave them names like

Roach coaches and city councils across the U.S. passed laws against Mexican street food vendors

through the 1980s and 1990s.

And then all of a sudden during the Great Recession, once non-Mexicans got into this scene,

municipalities started to loosen their rules.

Now they're starting to regulate again, and they're coming down even harder than ever before.

My colleague Gabriel San Roman recently wrote about what's happening in our hometown of Anaheim.

He covers Orange County Everything for Times OC.

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