Largest street vendor protest in decades calls for more permits, less enforcement
More than 500 protesters marched on City Hall advocating for a bill package to strengthen protections, access and opportunity for street vendors. Organizers say it was the largest demonstration in decades over the long-standing issue.
Most participants at the Aug. 15 event were street vendors themselves, like the Street Vendor Project’s Calvin Baker. Baker sells general merchandise on Harlem’s 125th Street, an age-old corridor for Black street vendors in New York City.
“We have a 9-to-5 just the way [everyone does],” he told the AmNews. “We go to the store and we pay taxes on whatever we buy—most of us pay taxes. We pay rent. We buy clothes, we buy food for our kids, clothes for our kids. We want what you want.”
The city’s enforcement against the sidewalk market has been well-documented by the AmNews over the decades.
An article from Dec. 8, 1990 described the block between 7th and 8th Avenue with “the smell of incense mingled with that of fried plantains, and vendors dressed in colorful African clothing.” But the author noted such sights and smells were under attack after then-Mayor David Dinkins signed two bills strengthening the NYPD’s enforcement confiscating goods from unlicensed vendors, supported by “business owners, who are mostly whites and Asians living outside of the community.”
In 1993, Karen Juanita Carrillo of the Amsterdam News reported Black street vendors began organizing regular rallies and printing their own newsletter to “maintain their right to a presence on Harlem’s most famous commercial block, 125th Street.”
Three decades later, enforcement and confiscation continues to be a challenge for vendors, according to Baker. He noted the Department of Sanitation’s issuance of $1,000 fines, both civil and criminal, for selling without a license or permit can wipe out weeks’ worth of earnings. Earlier this summer, the AmNews reported vendor Edgar Telesford was ticketed while hawking water bottles and chips on 125th Street. His merchandise was seized.
Yet legal vending remains limited despite past reforms under the de Blasio administration due to caps on food vendor supervisory licenses and general vendor licenses. The previous legislation led to the rollout of 4,450 new supervisory licenses over a decade.
One of the bills called for by the protesters would increase the vendor license cap each year over five years before totally lifting the cap. Sponsoring councilmember Pierina Sanchez, the daughter and granddaughter of street vendors herself, estimates around 80% of street vendors in her Bronx district operate unlicensed.
“I’ve got 20 co-sponsors on my piece of legislation. This bill is data supported and this fall, we’re kicking off conversations to bring everybody to the table,” Sanchez said during the rally. “We know the system is broken, we know we have to increase the number of permits and we have to improve the way we do enforcement.”
Three other city council bills accompany Sanchez’s in the “Street Vendor Reform Package.” If passed, they would remove criminal charges for unlicensed vending (making all fines civil penalties), allow carts to park further from the curb, and establish an office within the Department of Small Business Services to help street vendors comply with licensing requirements.
The NYC Street Vendors Justice Coalition organized last Thursday’s rally. Multiple languages were spoken during the demonstration including Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. Shawn Garcia, the director of advocacy at member organization Transportation Alternatives, said rights for street vendors impact all New Yorkers.
“We’re a transit equity organization, and where we find the intersection with street vendor justice and transit equity is about how our streetscape in New York City really should be designed to support how people move, how people live [and] how our neighborhoods operate culturally,” he said over the phone. “Street vendors are a critical part of the New York City streetscape, and creating a more conducive way for street vendors to operate safely and without harassment, goes to strengthen how our streetscape looks generally.
“We’re always pushing for safer conditions for pedestrians, users of our streets, and street vendors are included in that equation for us.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
The post Largest street vendor protest in decades calls for more permits, less enforcement appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.