Former DOE teacher shocked by $1,000 fine for selling water and chips without a license on 125th Street
Brooklyn resident Edgar Telesford was slapped with a $1,000 summons for selling bottled water and pre-packaged chips without a license from the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) last June. A former teacher, Telesford was ticketed near the famed Apollo Theater on 125th in Harlem and says the fine is a major setback for remaining financially independent.
“I have to sell 3,000 bottles of water to be able to pay for that ticket,” he said. “I walk up and down on 125th Street, from 125th to Marcus Garvey [Park], and I may sell about five to 10 bottles of water each time I walk the five to six blocks. And that was my route, and they caught me on my route.
“You could imagine how many times I would have to walk that route to pay for that ticket, and then pay rent and then buy something to eat.”
$1,000 marks the typical fine for section 17-307 (a)(1) of the city’s health code, which bans individuals from serving as a food vendor without a license.
Compliance can be tough. Mobile food vendors require both a license for handling food and a permit to set up shop. So after completing the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s licensing requirements, a vendor like Telesford would also need a permit.
“A lot of people cannot access the permits because there are caps on the number of these permits that goes back to the ‘80s,” said Mohamed Attia, managing director of the Street Vendor Project. “The only change that happened to this cap was really recent in 2021 when the council passed Intro. 1116 which is now known as Local Law 18 [of] 2021. The local law states that the health department should make 445 applications for a new type of license, called a supervisory license. [But] 445 applications doesn’t mean 445 licenses.
“That means that the agency will send those applications to vendors and wait for the vendors to fill it out, submit it, and go through the whole process, and then they can obtain the supervisory license. Now this supervisory license is different from the old license, which allows the vendor to obtain a permit for their cars or truck immediately. So there is no more waiting time for the permits, but there is a significant wait time for that supervisory license.”
Attia says while the $1,000 fine is a longstanding flat fee, some vendors are double-ticketed for $2,000 due to lacking both a license and permit. He’s also seen both civil and criminal summons issued at the discretion of the officer.
Telesford started street vending after losing his job in the NYC Department of Education teaching science. Struggling in his job search and too young to retire, he began vending in Manhattan, which he found more accessible than in his home borough of Brooklyn. He typically buys water and chips in bulk from warehouse stores and sells them loose. However, the city requires the same standards for such goods as it would for handling raw ingredients, according to Attia.
DSNY spokesperson Vincent Gragnani said 73 warning signs and fliers were distributed in the 125th corridor before the agency took “any enforcement actions.” He also pointed to enforcement stemming from more than 18,000 complaint calls through 311, business improvement districts, councilmember offices and community boards between last April to the end of this past March.
Mayor Eric Adams re-established DSNY as the enforcement agency over street vendors last year.
“We should be clear that the Department of Sanitation did not create street vending laws nor set the fines,” Gragnani said in an email to the AmNews. “We enforce these laws, with a focus on situations where vending has created dirty conditions, safety issues, items being left out overnight, and setups that block curbs, subway entrances, bus stops, sidewalks or store entrances.”
City council members introduced the “Street Package Reform” bill package last year, which includes Intro. 431, a bill increasing the number of licenses.
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.
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