Spoiled!

How relentless enforcement and $1,000 tickets are ruining

Chinatowns largest fruit & vegetable market
New York City is in the midst of a health crisis. Fifty-eight percent of New Yorkers are overweight or obese, and more than half-a-million
city residents have been diagnosed with diabetes.1 In recent years, social scientists and public health officials have linked many health
problems geographically to food deserts neighborhoods where access to fresh and healthy food is limited. Studies have shown that
food deserts are found almost exclusively in low-income neighborhoods of color.2
In recent years, New York City government officials have taken bold steps to address this problem. For example, in 2008, the City created
the FRESH program to promote the establishment of grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods through the use of zoning and financial
incentives. The same year, the Mayors new food policy coordinator spearheaded an innovative program to allow 1,000 new fruit and
vegetable carts to open in neighborhoods deemed food deserts.
Finally, over the last four years, through the leadership of Speaker Christine Quinn, City Council has provided more than $1 million of funding to
make Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) machines available to food stamp
recipients at city farmers markets.
Yet, on Forsyth Street in Chinatown, in what is certainly the busiest fruit
and vegetable market in any low-income New York neighborhood, the
citys police and health departments are undermining access to healthy
food through strict enforcement of vending regulations and near-daily
sweeps, resulting in ticketing, arrests, and the confiscation and destruction of fresh produce and vending equipment.
Data recently released by the Environmental Control Board (ECB) reveal
that 949 ECB summonses were issued to fruit and vegetable vendors at
the street market on Forsyth Street between Canal and Division Streets in
2009 and 2010, an average of 1.3 tickets per day. When criminal court,
parking and sanitation summonses are added in, we estimate Forsyth
Street Market vendors have received more than 2,000 total tickets over
the past two years.

Photo Nathan Smith

Our three-month investigation reveals that this aggressive enforcement has driven vendors out of business, diminished the
market, and curbed access to healthy food for Chinatown residents.
The Forsyth Street Market started in 2005, when a group of vendors were relocated from Division Street to the thendesolate, curved block along the base of the Manhattan Bridge. The vendors had gained popularity for their exceptionally
low prices, which catered to elderly people and poor workers in the neighborhood. 4 However, their presence had also
drawn complaints from the managers of Confucius Plaza, the large housing complex nearby. After coaxing from the Mayors
office and, finally, the construction of bollards that blocked their access to the curb the vendors moved to Forsyth Street.
At first, there was nobody here. It was a public toilet, said Paul Valentino, 75, the markets elder salesman. We cleaned it
up. Gradually, with more space than on Division Street, the market grew. Currently, about twenty vending stands sell nearly
every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable, including Chinatown favorites like bok choy, bitter melon, and bitter squash.
With each stand employing an average of three workers to manage the brisk stocking and selling, about 60 people are employed at Forsyth Street, all immigrants from countries as diverse as China, Korea, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Honduras, Mexico, and Ecuador.
The vendors low-margin, high-volume model has proven popular to customers, 94% of whom are Asian-American, mostly
from the immediate neighborhood and also Flushing and Sunset Park, both of which have nearby service via commuter
van.5 Many local restaurants buy wholesale at the market each morning. All this activity has helped cause a resurgence on
Forsyth Street. Foot traffic is up and new restaurants have opened.
Over time, however, the Forsyth Street Market also became a favored place for police and health inspectors, who visited the
market and wrote tickets on 231 separate days - an average of once every three days - during 2009 and 2010. Indeed, the
949 ECB tickets given out on that single city block represent more than 2% of all summonses issued to mobile food vendors
citywide during that period. These 949 tickets, by comparison, were also 19% more tickets than the 795 tickets issued during the same period at the citys four wholesale public markets combined.5
In fact, 470 of the 949 ECB tickets, or 50%, were written for a single violation - 17-315(c) of the New York City Administrative Code, which states that no items.. shall be placed upon any public space adjacent to a vending vehicle or pushcart.
This rule, which requires that vendors store all their produce on a regulation-size, six foot pushcart, is often flouted on bustling Forsyth Street, which resembles a busy marketplace more than a row of sidewalk fruit stands. To sell at these prices,
we need more than six feet of space said vendor Ali Mohammed.
The second most common ticket written was for 17-311, or failing to display a license. This ticket, which vendors receive
when they keep their license in their pocket, or when it is obstructed by heavy winter clothing, was cited 50% more often
than not having a license and not having a permit combined.
Just as they are concentrated among a few regulations, tickets written to Forsyth Street Market vendors were written by a
fairly small group of police officers. In fact, six officers from the 5th Precinct officers Murdocco, Zhang, Dunbar, Valitutto,
Hamlin and Center wrote 362 tickets, or nearly 40% of the total ECB tickets written on Forsyth Street in 2009 and 2010.

1.See Council Speaker

Christine Quinn FoodWorks Presentation,
December 7, 2009.
2. See Micheael Bader
et. al, Disparities in
Neighborhood Food
Environments: Implications of Measurement
Strategies. Economic
Geography 86(4):409430, 2010.
3. According to the 2000
Census, 31% of all
Chinatown households
live below the federal
poverty level, compared
to 21% of all NYC
households.
4. Denny Lee, Chinatown: At a Street Market,
Bruised Fruit, Summonses, and Rats, NY
Times, March 10, 2002.
5. According to an SVP
survey conducted July 8,
2011.
6. See NYC Mayors
Management Report, FY
2010, page 176.
7. See http://www.
Boweryboogie. com/
2011/06/manhattanbridge-produce-vendorson-the-outs/
8. See World Journal,
http:/www. ourchinatown.org/2011/06/29/thedaily-five-june-29-2/

Customers line up for produce

We work 7 days a week. And

we are trying. We try to follow
the law. But still we get tickets.
I think they are trying to ruin
our business.
-Ida, 43
former medical worker

I used to carry 10-15 items,

and now I only have five. With
only six feet of space, you
cant get enough business.
The customers are not shopping any more.
- Ali, 21
young entrepreneur

The Department of Health

comes and takes away my
pushcart, about every two
months. The fruit, the vegetables, everything. They throw
them in the garbage. And
each time, I lose a week of
work.
- Mohammed, 39
supports wife & three children

Low prices draw customers from around the

neighborhood and across the region
94% of customers are Asian-American

Forsyth Street Fruit and Vegetable Market

Before, it was very busy here.

Now its very slow. The customers are scared to come.
Its hard to be in business. I
dont know what to do.

Abdul Mannan with a $2,000

decision for two tickets
Each month, I get 7 or 8 tickets for criminal court from the
police. But the health tickets
are the biggest problem they cost $1,000. How can I
pay this? We are not making
a million dollars.

- Phin, 45
in U.S. for 20 years

Forsyth Street ECB tickets 2009 & 2010

items not in or under cart
failed to display license
no license / permit
cart not abutting curb
improper stand
cart touching structure
other
total

July 4, 2011 6:24 pm

470
120
80
67
34
17
161
949

- Andy, 29
new father

50%
13%
8%
7%
4%
2%
17%
June 13, 2011 2:12 pm

July 13, 2011 6:19 pm

June 24, 2011 6:40 pm

A Tale of Two Markets

Union Square

Forsyth Street

Established in 1976, the Union Square Greenmarket has grown, over

the last 35 years, to become perhaps the most famous and successful open-air farmers market in the country.
The market has earned primary credit for turning a neglected and
drug-strewn urban park into a mecca for tourists and food-loving New
Yorkers. Thousands of visitors shop there each market day, including
celebrity chefs like Anita Lo and Danny Meyer. They and others have
opened nearby restaurants devoted to fresh, seasonal food, helping
to turn Union Square into a chic neighborhood.

Vending from crates

Less than two miles away, another fruit and vegetable market also
revitalized a once-dangerous and crime-ridden area. This market
also serves as a destination for thousands of local residents and
restaurant owners each day, who also appreciate the variety of produce, low prices, and friendly atmosphere.
But city regulations and city authorities treat the immigrant vendors
on Forsyth Street in Chinatown very differently from their Union
Square counterparts, most of whom are white farmers from upstate
New York and New Jersey.

Vending from tables

Due to legal loopholes, the Union Square vendors are exempt from
the dozens of rules and regulations that apply to mobile food vendors
in New York City. As a result, the same practices that result in $1,000
tickets on Forsyth Street are completely legal at Union Square.
For example, the Union Square vendors are not required to have city
vending licenses or permits, the latter of which are impossible to
obtain legally (in any event) without spending years on the waiting
list. The Union Square vendors are also not subject to cart placement
regulations like in 17-315 of the Administrative Code, which made
up 74% of the tickets written at Forsyth Street in the last two years.

Parking accommodated

Indeed, neither the NYPD nor the NYC Department of Health inspect
or patrol at the Union Square market. According to spokeswoman
Jessica Ziehm, that job is left to the New York State Department of
Agriculture and Markets, which regulates vendors of more hazardous
foods, like meats and cheeses, at Union Square, but not those who
sell whole fresh fruits and vegetables.
The result? While an estimated 2,000 tickets were written to Forsyth
Street vendors in the last two years, no more than a handful, if any,
were written at Union Square, a market of roughly comparable size
with similar vending practices.

Tents or canopies

In addition to ECB tickets, Forsyth Street vendors frequently receive criminal court tickets - pink summonses that look similar but require an inperson (and frequently all-day) appearance at New York City Criminal Court at 346 Broadway. Whats more, the vendors also regularly receive parking tickets and - although each pays for private garbage hauling - tickets from the Sanitation Department.
Because vending penalties increase for each prior offense, Forsyth Street Market vendors quickly reach the mandatory $1,000 per-ticket fine. Some
Forsyth Street vendors reported owing as much as $20,000, an amount which is unlikely to be paid, but very likely to prevent the vendor from renewing his license upon expiration. Vendor Md S. Uddin, for example, sold food for 11 years after arriving from Bangladesh with his family in 1999. He
now sits at home, according to his daughter Shavana. Owing nearly $7,000 from tickets he received on Forsyth Street, and unable to renew his
license, his family has gone on public assistance. My dad doesnt speak any English. He didnt even understand the rules, she said.
Apart from ticketing, the police use other tactics. On June 20, 2011, responding to complaints that vendors were parking illegally overnight, the 5th
Precinct towed two vending trucks and placed metal barricades and No Parking signs along the curb. 7 The following week, they arrested one vendor and confiscated 450 boxes of produce. 8 While some vendors now park in lots nearby, about half the vendors left the market - and along with
them, many customers. Business is down at least 40% since the barricades went up, said Paul. Customers have taken notice. Now its nothing
compared to what it was, said Garret Linn, who lives nearby. We cant get what we want.
Complaints from the vendors, to the 5th Precinct and the Mayors office, have fallen on deaf ears. Luckily, there are signs that some city agencies
have a long-term vision for the market. In 2009, the Department of Transportation announced plans to create a public plaza on Forsyth Street, widening the sidewalk and creating more space for the vendors. Designs have not yet been finalized. Construction is expected to begin in mid- to late2012.
Until then, the New York City government should ask itself what its aggressive enforcement at the Forsyth Street Market is accomplishing. Apart
from the clear harm done to the vendors, the City is undeniably undermining its other praiseworthy efforts to increase access to fresh fruits and
vegetables in low-income neighborhoods like Chinatown.

July 2011 Street Vendor Project, Urban Justice Center, 123 William Street, NY, NY, 10038 www.streetvendor.org