Los Angeles is more than familiar with pop-up shops. Anything from avant-garde pastries to indie designer brands accumulates long lines outside previously uninhabited storefronts across the City.
These flexible commercial spaces are extremely short-term, and often house businesses that don’t sell their products through a traditional brick-and-mortar retail format. To keep up with this market, California assembly members introduced legislation that allows smaller businesses to set up pop-up shops for 120 days.
The United States pop-up market is worth billions of dollars and generated a revenue of around $16 billion in 2025 alone. The West Coast, more specifically L.A., is one of the leading markets for temporary retail spaces. Unlike other cities within the market, such as New York or Paris, L.A.’s retail spaces are significantly cheaper while offering similar brand visibility.
“Los Angeles has become the West Coast home of the pop-up store. It’s where brands come to meet customers in person, quickly and without a long lease, and it’s a favorite landing pad for international names testing the US market,” CEO and founder of Storefront, the world’s largest online marketplace for temporary pop-up real estate, Mohamed Haouache said in a statement to Los Angeles Magazine.
While AB 1679 is applicable to any California business that would like to test the waters for 120 days or more, the language of the bill has Los Angeles in mind. The Temporary Commercial Activation permit would create an easier pathway for small businesses to operate in readily available spaces without triggering additional inspections or major changes, which are usually required when taking over a brick-and-mortar.
Essentially, these small businesses would be grandfathered into a space, bypassing the thousands of dollars it would take to bring everything up to code.
Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks from Oakland, CA, and Mark Gonzales from L.A. co-authored the bill with intentions of streamlining the requirements it takes to open up an establishment.
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“Under the current system, every local jurisdiction has different requirements, permit durations, and application procedures,” Gonzales said. “This bill sets streamlined permit requirements, while also extending the duration a business can occupy vacant retail spaces from the current average of about 1 week to 120 days. By providing a standard process, we ensure businesses can get the permits they need to open their doors faster.”
The bill, however, doesn’t incentivize small businesses to remain as pop-ups but rather test the market to see if their business would flourish as a brick-and-mortar.
Clemence de Lutz Gossett is a co-owner of Petitgrain Boulangerie in Santa Monica, a French-style bakery that regularly hosts guest chef and baker pop-ups. Free of charge, de Lutz Gossett allows small, independent bakers and chefs with varying levels of commerce experience to use her bakery as a temporary storefront.
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As a proponent for small, independently run businesses, she believes that AB 1679 will not only help the City’s economy, but change the food industry on a community level.
“We want L.A. to be populated by more owner-operated food businesses, and I think this bill will really help,” de Lutz Gossett said. “There’s all these small things that could cost you a lot if you don’t know about it ahead of time, and having this bill really allows people to get the time to figure things out and test the waters.”
In addition to her roles in the patisserie industry – including opening Gourmandise, a small-scale culinary school – she worked as a restaurant and bakery consultant for 20 years helping develop recipes.
During her time as a consultant, as well as running her own food businesses, de Lutz Gossett became quite familiar with how the industry works. She said the process of taking over a previously established kitchen is no easy task, especially for small business owners looking to start a brick-and-mortar store.
“You can have a proof of concept for a few months, hopefully make some money, enough to be able then to submit a proposal for turning that kitchen over,” de Lutz Gossett said.
Food-centric businesses work on a classification-based system. When a business closes its doors and ends its lease, depending on what the retail space was classified as, only a similarly-classified business can take over the space.
In layman’s terms, since a bakery cannot cook raw fish or meat, they can’t move into a previously-operated burger joint. Since a burger joint does cook raw meat, they can’t move into a bakery.
When a business does take over a space that doesn’t meet their classification, de Lutz Gossett said they can spend around $700,000 just getting the building up to code, and this doesn’t include all the other business expenses needed to open the doors.
“As food establishment people, we have our ears to the ground at all times because we know once a place is going to close, we immediately want to find somebody to take it over before that 60-day rule,” de Lutz Gossett said. “If you just do an ownership change, and you don’t change the menu, then you can seamlessly go in and avoid having to do a lot of upgrades.”
If AB 1679 were to pass, it would make things far easier for businesses to operate without having to find a brick-and-mortar space that aligns with their businesses’ classification. However, the bill is written for “limited food preparation,” meaning food can only be prepared by heating, frying, baking, roasting, popping, shaving of ice, blending, steaming or boiling of hot dogs or assembly of non-prepackaged food, according to the L.A. County Public Health Department.
Since this bill applies to the entirety of California, it may vary depending on county guidelines and regulations regarding limited food preparation.
Ronnie Munoz is the head chef and owner of Camello Pita-Poblano, a Mexican-Middle Eastern pita sandwich pop-up that operates all across Southern California. Muneoz handmakes fresh heirloom corn pitas and savory stuffings out of his home based in East L.A.
Munoz follows the strict guidelines for running a pop-up operation. To ensure he follows L.A.’s public health and safety standards, he meticulously abides by the required temperatures for transportation, the length of time food can sit before use and ensures that anything he cooks at home is within the parameters set by the applicable permits.
Due to L.A.’s strict public health guidelines, especially when it comes to food, the required permits and health and safety regulations required for pop-ups can be a lot for business owners like Munoz to handle.
“It’s very much dependent on the concept, it’s very limiting,” Munoz said. “I don’t think there is much room in that space for serious restaurateurs that want to test out a concept that could grow into a restaurant space.”
However, if a bill like AB 1679 were to pass, Munoz said it would aid the transition for business owners to transition into a permanent space to serve the local community.
“What works for me, and is ideal for me, is to find a community oriented location. … Ideally, if [the temporary pop-up space] working for me and the landlord, I’d love to stay and continue,” Munoz said. “I see myself going all the way with this project. This could be super appealing, and I wish more people would jump in on allowing more residencies like this.”