(CN) - A licensed street vendor who has sold snacks near San Diego Padres games since 2009 asked California appellate panel Monday to revive his lawsuit against the city over multiple citations for violating sidewalk vending regulations.

Imhotep Mustaqeem, a veritable fixture outside Petco Park, says he was cited a number of times in the summer of 2024 for violating limits to vending hours in the area around the Padres' home stadium - three hours before games and one hour after. He received two fines totaling $300 before the city impounded his products as well as his cash, more than $1,200.

Mustaqeem sued the city, claiming the regulations were superseded by a 2002 state law which decriminalized sidewalk vending. A Superior Court judge denied his motion for a preliminary injunction, which is the ruling that Mustaqeem appealed to the state's Fourth Appellate District.

Mustaqeem's attorney Jeremiah Graham told a three-judge panel Monday that the trial court judge hadn't correctly analyzed the balance of harms. Mustaqeem, he said, faced the possibility of not being able to provide for his wife and two children, and of being evicted. The city, meanwhile, had failed to "describe an objective health safety and welfare concern."

"What California was trying to do was say that a street vendor is a business owner that's entitled to just as much respect as a 7-Eleven or the owner of a bar," Graham said of the state law.

"They're on public property," Justice Terry O'Rourke pointed out. "Those other businesses are not."

The judges appeared more sympathetic when Graham moved to the issue of impoundment. Graham said the seizure of Mustageem's inventory was "the equivalent of the death penalty to my client's business."

"This is the sort of thing that started the Arab Spring," O'Rourke noted. "Police seized his inventory. I'm very troubled by that aspect. The city has not proven their case against him, and yet some penalty has already been imposed."

San Diego Deputy City Attorney Manny Arambula insisted the city hadn't taken any cash from Mustaqeem, and that the "impoundment" only occurred because he hadn't paid his citations. All he had to do to get his inventory back was to show some identification and pay his old fines.

"There is literally no cost to the vendor to get his items back," Arambula said.

O'Rourke said, "One might call that harassment. It puts him through his paces. If you're going to say come back the next day, what's the point of taking it in the first place? Maybe he's got a day job, he can't pick it up."

What, asked Justice Julia Kelety, was the evidence that Mustaqeem was "doing something unhealthy and unsafe?"

Arambula said the ordinance had a number of aims, one of which was to place limits on "undue concentration of economic activity."

"This is obviously not directed at any single one vendor," Arambula said. "This is about the cumulative effect of all the vendors who might go there."

Justice Martin Buchanan wondered if the issue wasn't about to become moot since the trial court will be ruling on the entire case in a few weeks.

"We'll probably have another appeal," Graham said. "This is a very important case."

Both Arambula and Graham urged the panel to decide the merits of the case - whether the city's street vending ordinance conflicts with state law - and not just the issue of the preliminary injunction, in order to avoid a lot of "back and forth."

Source: Courthouse News Service