NYC Street Vendors Rally For Reforms Ahead Of City Council Vote

NEW YORK CITY — More than 100 street vendors, politicians and vendor advocates rallied in the rain on Tuesday in front of City Hall in support of the Street Vendor Reform Package, a group of bills that would decriminalize street vending, support vendors and make permits more accessible.

The rally, complete with workers holding signs that said "STREET VENDORS ARE SMALL BUSINESSES," was held ahead of a public hearing in City Council, where the Committee of Consumer and Worker Protection heard from vendors, advocates and civilians on the package.

In New York City, there are approximately 23,000 vendors selling food and other goods, yet only one quarter of them have vending permits due to a legal cap, according to a recent study from the Immigration Research Initiative.

Because of this, vendors — many of them immigrants, army veterans, women and people of color — risk fines and criminal summonses from law enforcement, a spokesperson from the Street Vendor Project, a nonprofit that supports vendors, said.

"I hear from vendors every day that they are confused, discouraged or afraid to interact with the system because there's no realistic path forward under the outdated and arbitrary permit cap," Mohamed Attia, the managing director of the Street Vendor Project, said.

Criminal summonses are especially precarious for undocumented immigrants, amid President Donald Trump's efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said.

"Street vendors are iconic in New York City," Awawdeh said. "Most of them are immigrants and small business owners who are continuing to be harassed and criminalized instead of celebrated because our local laws aren’t keeping up with the need for increased licenses for our smallest businesses."

However, Mayor Eric Adams told reporters at an unrelated event that he is skeptical of the bill package, saying, "People don't want to see a free-for-all in their community around vendoring," according to the Gothamist.

Tuesday's public hearing concerned two of the four bills in the package.

The first was Intro 431, sponsored by Councilmember Pierina Ana Sanchez, which would increase the number of permits and licenses, before removing the cap entirely by July 1, 2029.

The second was Intro 408, sponsored by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, which would create a Division of Street Vendor Assistance within the Department of Small Business Services.

After the public hearing, the package of bills will move to the City Council, where they will be put to a vote. The vote has not been calendared yet.

After the vote, it will go to the mayor's desk to be finalized.

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