NEW YORK – Dozens of street vendors, Bronx residents and elected officials protested Sunday to demand that street vendors be treated with respect and allowed to go about business.
The protest, organized by Street Vendor Project, arrived in solidarity with Diana Hernández Cruz, a Hispanic street vendor to whom workers from the New York City Sanitation Department threw away the fruits and vegetables she sold last Thursday, an incident that was captured on video.
“I have been working here for 5 years in the heat, in the snow, to support my children. I am a single mother. I was very outraged the day the Sanitation Department threw the fruits and vegetables from my stall, it was very unfair. I was present here, I told them not to throw away the food, but they did it anyway, ”said Hernández Cruz, who at the same time asked to be paid what he lost that day.
Protesters alongside Cruz gathered at the corner where the incident occurred, on White Plains Road, to demand a change. According to the seller, two policemen called the Sanitation Department to vote on the products because allegedly they did not have permission to sell and the Street Vendor Project noted that the city’s action was an abuse.
Officials stressed that the authorities when inspecting Cruz’s position, they realized that she did not have a valid license and that she left the position to avoid being fined and that was when they began to throw away the products, something they say cannot happen again.
“What happened on Thursday is an example of the city’s failure on several levels. The city has failed street vendors for decades and is still failing them to this point,” said Mohamed Attia, Managing Director of the Street Vendors Project at the Urban Justice Center. “As the city is recovering from the pandemic, we must take serious steps to help our smaller businesses instead of criminalizing them and confiscating their merchandise. The State Government should step up and pass the Street Vendors Legalization Act (S1175 / A5081) to fix this problem. “
According to the organization, due to a limit on the number of licenses and permits issued to suppliers, it is almost impossible to enter the industry legally, effectively criminalizing thousands of small entrepreneurs, including Diana, who must operate without a permit. The organization noted that Diana had previously tried to apply for a street food vendor permit, but was denied. There are only 853 licenses in total for merchandise vendors, and by 2032 there will be 9,000 supervisory licenses available for mobile food vendors.
As essential workers, street vendors provided New York City with fresh, affordable food and PPE during the pandemic, though they were excluded from the greatest economic relief, the organization said.
“The actions unfolded by the city this week demonstrate, once again, that the current system used to regulate street vendors is clearly not working. People are struggling with food insecurity every day, and due to the current policies of the city, thousands of pounds of fresh food are literally thrown away. This is not the answer. We must pass the legislation currently proposed by the state and the city to create an environment that welcomes and protects vendors in our business communities. This The constant battle against street vendors must end, “said Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernández.
A spokesperson for the Department of Sanitation responded to our sister network NBC 4 saying that what happened began as a compliance action by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, where they were issuing a violation to the supplier and that this “abandoned the articles.” They added that “the New York City Police called the Sanitation Department to dispose of what was then a large amount of material left on the sidewalk and that there is a city law (Local Law 171 of 2017) that specifies that an attempt should be made to donate confiscated food, but the law says that a representative of the Department of Health must be on hand to certify that the food is safe … because the chain of custody of the food could not be verified, DSNY began to dispose of items as requested by the New York Police Department ”.
A bill in the state legislature sponsored by State Senator Jessica Ramos and Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas would formalize and decriminalize the street vending industry by removing the currently insurmountable barrier to entry into the industry so that vendors can obtain permits to operate their business in accordance with the Law .
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