COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING of short-term rentals will become illegal under a proposed ordinance approve by the Garden Grove City Council on Tuesday (Shutterstock).

The city’s efforts to combat code violations and illegal businesses got a boost Tuesday night when the Garden Grove City Council voted 7-0 to approve a schedule of fines for a wide variety of breaches of the law.

Additionally, the council voted 7-0 to approve an ordinance regulating street vending within city limits.

The code violation ordinance will increase administrative fines for breaking city codes pertaining to building and safety issues and ban commercial advertising of illegal businesses, such as short-term rentals, marijuana dispensaries, gambling and topless servers at coffeehouses.

For example, in the case of a violation of a building code, the first violation would carry a fine of $130, with the second (within a year of the first) would be $700, followed by a fine of $1300 for each additional violation (within a year of the first) and $2,500 for each additional violation of the same provision within two years of the date of the first violation, providing that it’s at a commercial property in an existing building.

The ordinance would also allow the city to recover the cost of legal action necessary to abate any nuisance caused by failing to adhere to the codes.

In the case of vendors, the ordinance regulates the location, operations and hours of street vendors, and bans “stationary” vendors from residential areas.

Continued was consideration of approval of appointments to city commissions and committees, probably until the meeting of Feb. 12. The deadline to submit applications will be extended to Feb. 6.