STREET VENDORS UNITE!

Recommendations for Improving the Regulations on

Street Vending in New York City

Food Vendors’ Union

Local 169V
33 W. 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 255-9655

Street Vendor Project

Urban Justice Center
666 Broadway, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10012
(646) 602-5679
Why the Laws Need Reform

Street vendors have been a hallmark of New York City since the 1860’s, when the first pushcart
peddlers began roaming the Lower East Side. Over ten thousand people currently make their
living selling their wares on streets of our city, in every neighborhood and throughout all five
boroughs. Most are immigrants and people of color. Many are disabled veterans. They earn
very little money and work under harsh conditions. They perform an important service by
providing convenient and affordable goods to New Yorkers and visitors from all economic
backgrounds. They are entrepreneurs who ask for nothing more than the opportunity to earn a
decent living on the street.

Yet even today, with an entrepreneur in City Hall, the city continues to treat these small
businesspeople like criminals. Under the guise of public safety, the city has erected a complex
web of overlapping and conflicting regulations that make life nearly impossible for vendors.
Jurisdiction over vending is divided between at least ten different city agencies, none of which is
responsive to the real needs of vendors. Punishments for minor violations have become so severe
that many vendors cannot work. Licensing restrictions have forced many to vend illegally, under
constant threat of arrest. Indeed, it seems like every time the city attempts to solve vendors’
problems, it only makes them worse.

While the city must regulate street vending to ensure the health and safety of the public, it has no
interest in harassing vendors with endless arrests and exorbitant fines, delaying their ability to
work, destroying their products, denying them a fair hearing, driving them from areas where they
have vended for years at the whims of giant corporations, passing regulations governing their
livelihood without any notification, failing to acknowledge the contribution they make to our
city, disrespecting them when they attempt to voice their grievances, and in many other ways
impeding their right to vend on the streets of New York City. But the city does.

Finally, the city’s mistreatment of vendors has caused them to rise up, come together, and turn to
organizations for help. Both the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center and Local
169 of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), have committed
resources and time on behalf of the city’s vendors in an attempt to break the bureaucratic lock
which stifles the entrepreneurial spirit of men and women whose only wish is to survive in a city
increasingly turned over to corporate interests.

Below are our modest proposals developed with and on behalf of the thousands of vendors who
provide a real service to our great city, but who continue to be denied the respect and justice they
deserve.

Ten Ways to Improve Vending in New York

1. Lift the Cap. Since the Koch administration, the number of merchandise licenses
and food vending permits have been arbitrarily limited at 853 and 3,000, respectively.
Demand far outweighs supply; the waiting list for a merchandise license is now
longer than 25 years. No names have even been added since 1993. In the meantime,
most food vendors are forced to pay thousands of dollars every year to rent their
permits from permit holders. Aspiring vendors have no chance of getting a license,

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 forcing many to vend illegally. By removing the cap on licenses and permits, the city
could create thousands of jobs during a time of rising unemployment and government
cutbacks. By bringing vendors into the system, the city will also collect millions in
additional tax revenue. Congestion is already sufficiently limited by street closings
and place restrictions. Two city reports in the last twelve years have recommended
the license cap be lifted,1 but pressure from the Business Improvement Districts
(BIDs) has kept it from happening. The city should stand up to the BIDs and lift the
licensing cap.

2. End Forfeitures. In addition to levying fines against vendors and temporarily

seizing their vehicles or pushcarts, the city seeks forfeiture of these items. This
policy is akin to taking away someone’s car (for good!) for a single speeding ticket.
In one case, the city sued an ice cream vendor for his $80,000 truck after a single
violation. This cruel policy would never be tolerated by more influential groups. The
city’s tough new sidewalk café law, for example, allows an unlicensed restaurant to
be closed, but only after repeat offenses, and only for a limited time. In contrast, the
city puts street vendors out of business, permanently, after a single violation. Courts
have already found this forfeiture policy to be unconstitutionally excessive.2 The city
should abolish it and put in place a system where this ultimate sanction – taking away
a person’s business – is reserved for chronic offenders.

3. Abolish the Review Panel. With great fanfare in 1995, Mayor Giuliani created the
Street Vendor Review Panel and placed it in charge of determining which streets
would be closed to vending. Eight years later, it’s a complete failure. With no
objective criteria for determining which streets to close, the Review Panel does the
bidding of powerful business interests. While the BIDs hire “transportation
consultants,” vendors and their advocates are swept aside. The sole City Council
member on the Panel called it an “outrage” with “no input from elected officials.”3 In
nine years, the Review Panel closed more than 130 blocks to vending. How many
streets were opened? Zero. Even the Department of Business Services (DBS), which
administers the Review Panel, now wants nothing to do with it. The Review Panel, a
bad idea from the beginning, should be abolished and the streets it closed to vending
should be re-opened.

4. Reform Enforcement. Of all the problems street vendors face, police harassment is
by far the greatest. Each day, vendors are inspected by a different officer – with a
different interpretation of the law. Unlike laws on newsstands and sidewalk cafés,
which are enforced by Department of Consumer Affairs (DOCA) agents, the NYPD
enforces vending regulations. Enforcement is arbitrary and inconsistent. Why are
licensed street vendors – small businesspeople – being treated like criminals? Why
are police officers measuring the sidewalk to ensure compliance with the vending
laws – when they could be fighting real crime? A recent survey by the Citizens
1
“New York in Transition: Itinerant Peddlers and Vendors Everywhere,” City of New York Department of Business Services,
November 1992; “Balancing Safety and Sales on City Streets: A Report on Street Vending to Mayor David N. Dinkins,” New
York City Department of Consumer Affairs, February 1991.
2
City of New York v. Fred Nadler, No. 40430/00 (Decision of J. Shulman dated Sep. 5, 2001)
3
Testimony of Council member Noach Dear, Street Vendor Review Panel public hearing, December 16, 1999.

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 Crime Commission found that the vast majority of New Yorkers are opposed to
police enforcement against vendors.4 Yet the city wastes precious police resources on
its NYPD “Peddler Squad”. How misguided. Enforcement against street vendors
should be done by trained Health and Consumer Affairs inspectors, not the NYPD.

5. Streamline Bureaucracy. Street vending in New York is overseen by at least ten

city agencies, none of which are accountable to vendors. For example, the
Department of Health (DOH), which licenses food vendors and inspects their carts,
recently closed its Manhattan inspection center, forcing vendors to push their carts all
the way to Queens and back. Input from vendors was never solicited. DOCA
licenses merchandise vendors, DBS administers the Review Panel, and the
Department of Sanitation seizes vendors’ property – but vendors must get a release
from the Corporation Counsel before the same property is returned. Property that is
returned is often damaged, yet vendors have no where to turn. The Department of
Transportation regulates the placement of sidewalk furniture – and has allowed
hundreds of illegal planters to displace vendors across the city, despite protests from
vendor advocates. It’s no wonder vendors feel besieged. The city should establish a
single agency (like the Taxi & Limousine Commission) to consolidate these functions
and streamline the vending bureaucracy.

6. Write Manual. Current vending laws are a mixture of state statutes; various city
rules and regulations; state and federal case law, and unpublished city memorandums.
Lawyers and judges can barely understand these laws – let alone street vendors and
police officers. The city has made no attempt to combine these laws into an easy-to-
use format. Rather than a map, the city gives vendors a 29 page list of restricted
streets. General vendors must refer to zoning maps – not even available from the
Department of City Planning – to learn where they may vend. Confusion and
harassment reign supreme. Police officers frequently announce “new rules” on
vending, yet there are no new rules. Enforcement varies from precinct to precinct.
Vendors will comply with the law if they know what it is. Vendors and police
officers alike need a simple, readable and authoritative manual published in multiple
languages.

7. Legalize Craft Vending. In 1996, a federal court ruled that, under the First
Amendment, art may be sold on the street without a license.5 What is art? The city
has taken a narrow-minded view that “art” is limited to “fine art” such as paintings,
prints and photographs. As a result, hundreds of hard-working artists and
craftspeople have been arrested for selling their unique, hand-made creations on the
street. Their work is seized and often damaged. After a night in jail, the charges are
invariable dropped. Already the harm has been done. Shame on our city, the art
capital of the world, for treating its artists and craftspeople this way. Officers on the
beat are not qualified to determine what is and is not art. The city should recognize
that not all art comes in a rectangular frame. Rather than arresting and ticketing

4
“Crime, Police and Community: A Report by the Citizens Crime Commission,” July 2001.
5
Bery v. City of New York, 97 F.3d 689 (2d Cir. 1996).

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 them, it should pass a law making it legal for people to see their hand-made work on
the street.

8. Improve Adjudication. The present process of adjudication is stacked against

vendors and needs reform. The city’s 30,000 yearly vending violations are
adjudicated at the Environmental Control Board (ECB), while the Office of
Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) handles license revocation hearings. In
neither forum is there any opportunity for mediation or settlement. Judges should be
given discretion to reduce fines in appropriate cases in the interests of justice.
Otherwise, exorbitant fines of as much as $1,000 each will continue to put many
hard-working people out of work. In addition, vendors should not be made to return
to court repeatedly – losing a day’s earnings each time - when police officers don’t
bother to appear. Finally, the city should provide interpreters so that vendors who
don’t speak English can explain their case. Justice will never be done in a system
where judges must choose between believing a police officer who isn’t there and a
vendor they can’t understand. Adjudication must be improved.

9. Abolish Bidding. In 1995, City Council passed the “one-vendor, one-permit” law to
limit the exploitation of vendors by the large corporations that had accumulated
hundreds of permits. Companies vying for vending spots in the parks, however, are
exempt; coincidentally, the Parks Department raises millions of dollars every year
from vendor concessions. This exemption has fostered a system where several well-
connected companies have grown rich while their workers receive less than minimum
wage.6 Now, the administration is reportedly considering a similar bidding system
for our city streets! Bidding would force out of business the hard-working
individuals who have always been the hallmark of street vending in New York.
Vendors will never be able to out-bid huge corporations like Wendy’s, which was
recently awarded a vending contract for a park in the Bronx. Our streets, like our
parks, should never be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Bidding should be
abolished.

10. Provide Small Business Assistance. Instead of being treated like criminals, vendors
should be given training to grow their businesses. Many of today’s department stores
got their start as pushcarts, but vendors need help to get there. The city should create
a program for street vendors to learn basic accounting, tax, and marketing skills.
Rather than being driven into remote “market” sites, vendors should be given low-
interest loans to move into vacant storefronts. Since 9/11, food vendors can no longer
cross the city’s bridges with propane; they’re required to store their carts in
commissaries. Yet gentrification has pushed many commissaries out of the city,
leading to exorbitant rates at the few that are left. The city should consider providing
storage depots for vendors to keep their goods and pushcarts at night. By treating
vendors like entrepreneurs instead of criminals, the city can expand the base of
immigrant small businesspeople that make New York City so vibrant.

6
The New York State Office of the Attorney General has documented minimum wage and overtime violations by one large Parks
Department concessionaire.