New Reform Can End Contentious NYC Vendor Arrests, But Concerns Remain

BROOKLYN, NY — Often-viral videos of the city's street vendors being led away in handcuffs by police should become a thing of the past under new reforms unveiled this week — but advocates say their concerns haven't disappeared just yet.

The batch of reforms to the city's long-debated street vending rules, unveiled Wednesday, includes a repeal of the criminal penalties associated with the profession, meaning vendors can only be issued civil summonses if they are found violating vending rules.

Advocates who helped write the reforms say the move will go a long way in a goal that was already tackled last year: taking police out of the equation.

The NYPD are often caught up in tense encounters with street vendors — including a Broadway Junction arrest this month —despite a law that removed them as enforcers of vending laws in 2021, said leader of the Urban Justice Center's Street Vendor Project, Mohamed Attia.

"We still see the NYPD get involved with street vendors and give out criminal tickets for minor vending violations," Attia told Patch. "The goal here is to remove criminal liability so its just a civil violation for any vending-related issues. Vendors should not face any criminal charges."

The new reforms — which Mayor Eric Adams said he plans to put in place — were released after months of meetings by a Street Vendor Advisory Board formed under the 2021 law, which included street vendor advocates like Attia in the process for the first time.

The changes also include simplifying unclear or complicated rules and requiring city agencies to find more places vendors can legally set up to sell their goods, including using metered parking spots for food trucks or public plazas and parking lots.

“Street vendors are an integral part of New York City’s economy and give communities across our city their unique character," Adams said about the reforms. “Together, we can balance the needs of street vendors, brick-and-mortar businesses, and residents. These recommendations do just that by cutting red tape, creating new opportunities for street vendors to operate legally, and improving access to healthy food throughout the five boroughs.”

But though he praises the changes as a "great first step," Attia said they don't yet go far enough to get to the heart of the broken system: permits.

Advocates have long claimed a decades-old cap on vendor licenses has created a dangerous underground market for the permits and left vendors who are ticketed for selling without a permit in a cycle of debt.

The 2021 law started to lift one of these caps by making 400 or so new food permits available each year, but did nothing to raise a 1979 cap on licenses specific to merchandise vendors, Attia said.

Even with the food permits, it will take years to fully bring the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who make their living vending under the law, he said.

"That is something that people desperately need," Attia said. "Without formalizing the industry, everything these vendors are doing is being considered wrong [by the government] — even their existence — that’s where we see the tension on our streets."