Advocates Slam City Proposal Limiting Vendors Near WTC

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — A newly proposed City Council bill aims to beef up security at the World Trade Center by expanding the area's vendor-free zone, but was slammed by street vendors and advocates as discriminatory towards Muslims during a Thursday committee hearing.

Currently, vendors cannot operate in the area bounded by Liberty to Vesey Street, and Broadway to West Street. The bill, sponsored by Councilwoman Margaret Chin, would extend the zone's northern boundary to Barclay Street and would include portions of Trinity Place and Greenwich Street. West Broadway from Park Place to Barclay Street and Broadway between Barclay Street and Vesey Street would also be prohibited. Zuccotti Park would be exempt from the zone.

The NYPD says the plan would boot roughly a dozen vendors from the area, but advocates with the Street Vendor Project put the number of vendors at 22 — the majority of whom are Muslim.

“It is very important to acknowledge that 18 out of these 22 vendors are Muslims and as a Muslim American today I feel so offended by these bills," Mohamed Attia, co-director of the Street Vendor Project said during Thursday's Committee on Consumer Affairs and Business Licensing hearing.

“Muslim vendors are not a threat. The NYPD mentioned that these carts can be turned easily into weapons as they use propane and gasoline, how so? How so when these carts are so available to inspection at any time by many government agencies.”

Others charged the city with enforcing a double standard because a farmer's market, the weekly Greenmarket at Oculus Plaza, currently operates within the zone that excludes vendors.

"This initiative, the double standard it creates through the discrepancy of food card vendors and the nearby farmer's market, creates a specter of anti-Muslim discrimination at a moment when it is incredibly dangerous," said Albert Cahn, the legal director for the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Even if it is not the intent of anyone on this council, by passing this initiative you would be giving a PR win to the anti-Muslim extremists who continually seek to paint our Muslim neighbors as a threat.”

In the last few years, the World Trade Center has flourished into a booming hub of development. The fifth largest building in the city, 3 World Trade Center, opened on Monday and a performing art center and other buildings are slated for the area.

The zone's expansion would help protect residents and workers as the hub continues to grow, said Chin.

“This legislation is about ensuring safety for pedestrians and that includes the growing number of workers and residents in and around the World Trade Center site," said Chin, during the Council hearing. "To accommodate the new realitey of an almost fully built out World Trade Center site we are proposing a narrow, limited expansion of the zone.”

The NYPD has increased its security footprint with checkpoints and barricades beyond the current vendor-free zone and police worry that the propane tanks, gasoline and other flammable materials that food carts use make it harder for officers to detect threats.

"We know that these vendors are an important part of the Lower Manhattan community," said Oleg Chernyavsky, the NYPD's director of legislative affairs. "The presence of vendors, however, can soften an officer's vigilance when similar looking equipment being used to hide explosives is placed near the vendors who legitimately ply their trade."

Photo credit: Caroline Spivack/Patch