As ICE targets immigrant vendors on Canal Street, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams has released a review of the street vending industry, including how to support the city’s smallest businesses while enacting regulations that help make operations more safe and orderly. This review comes as the City Council considers a package of street vendor legislation with its session and term about to end.
“Street vendors are New York City’s smallest businesses, and provide some of the most affordable options for New Yorkers facing an increasingly unaffordable city,” said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. “This review documents the barriers that vendors face – including obstacles to licensing, inconsistency in enforcement, and regulations that make it near-impossible to operate in a successful and sustained way. The city is creating significant challenges without sufficient support for an industry that entrepreneurs and consumers each rely on. As we look toward a new mayoral administration, the Council has just a few crucial days to pass not only my bill, but the full package of street vendor legislation essential in keeping both vendors and consumers safe. We can build a thriving, regulated street vending environment in our neighborhoods.”
Pushing Forward: Legislative Reforms to Fix NYC’s Street Vending System documents the history of street vending in our city, and the barriers that vendors have faced across years and decades, as regulatory systems have failed to keep up with population or demand in the city.
It also addresses the problems with the Adams administration’s approach to enforcement, which placed jurisdiction over the industry on the Department of Sanitation while simultaneously relying on the NYPD for civil and criminal enforcement mechanisms. This convoluted and contradictory approach has led to greater confusion and potential for violations and overenforcement. Honest merchants are feeling harassed, without a pathway to access the proper business licenses, sometimes being unfairly arrested, and without adequate resources or clear regulations to follow. Criminal enforcement by the city against immigrant vendors could leave them more vulnerable to ICE detention and deportation.
With over 20,000 street vendors operating in the city, change needs to be made to ensure NYC’s smallest businesses can thrive rather than face an unsafe system that too often criminalizes this economic engine of our city rather than advance the opportunity and diversity it presents. In 2024 alone, the NYPD and Department of Sanitation issued nearly double the amount of vending-related tickets issued in 2023, and five times higher than the number of tickets issued in 2019.
In the review, the Public Advocate urges passage of a Street Vendor Reform package, which includes his legislation, Intro No. 408-A, to create division of street vendors assistance within the Department of Small Business Services. That office would be charged with providing training, outreach, and education to all food vendors and general vendors regarding entrepreneurship and compliance with all applicable local laws, rules, and regulation. It would also require the commissioner of small business services to update the department’s programs to facilitate services specifically for street vendor small businesses. This would give street vendors access to many of the same tools afforded to other small businesses.
Also included in the recommended legislative solutions are:
Int. No. 431-2024 – which would reform NYC’s street vending system to balance incentives with enforcement by requiring increased enforcement personnel, adding new mandatory suspension and revocation license language, and issuing licenses to bring existing vendors into the regulatory system.
Int. No. 1251-2024 – which would authorize the department to issue more applications each year, so that up to the fully permitted number supervisory licenses are issued every twelve months.
Int. No. 24-2024 – which would allow vendors to place their pushcarts further from the curb unless there is an obstruction in or on the sidewalk, in which case it would allow vendors to place their pushcarts as close as possible to the obstruction. Currently, the law requires pushcarts to abut the curb, endangering the safety of vendors.
Int. No. 947-2024 – which would mandate establishing an Office of Street Vendor Enforcement. SBS would be required to work in conjunction with SBS and any other relevant agency to issue quarterly reports containing information about enforcement interactions with street vendors.
Street vending continues to be an economic anchor for many New Yorkers, as is a particularly important cornerstone for many immigrants, people of color, and military veterans to successfully operate the city’s smallest businesses. As Pushing Forward demonstrates, urgent action is needed to strengthen and sustain this quintessential New York City industry.
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