By Sean Basinski
Whether they are classified as traditional workers, independent contractors, or self-employed entrepreneurs, street vendors in recent years have been asserting their rights to a greater piece of the economic pie – or hot dog, as the case may be.
This is happening on the global scale, as vendor and other informal sector workers are now being included in UN-level negotiations about urban labor. It is also happening in New York. In April, 2014, the Murphy Institute hosted a panel entitled “Taking It to the Streets,” where members of the Street Vendor Project and allies kicked off their campaign to lift the outdated and arbitrary caps on vending permits, which limits the number of vendors on the street, producing a secondary market for permits and subjected street vendors to countless fines.
More than two years later, that campaign is now gaining steam. A recent undercover investigation by Jeff Koyen in Crain’s New York detailed how the complex permitting system has created a black market that enriches a few, while leaving most vendors earning poverty wages. Koyen writes:
“…in 1981 [then-Mayor Ed] Koch set a limit of 3,000 citywide permits for mobile food carts and trucks. The mayor’s move turned pushcarts into the new taxis, whose medallions—not the cars themselves—are the valuable asset […].
Illicitly renting a two-year permit from its legitimate holder can cost as much as $20,000 for a cart that serves hot food and can bring in far more revenue than a simple coffee-and-doughnut cart, or as much as $30,000 for a food truck—a fully mobile kitchen…[A]n estimated 70% to 80% of permits are illegally in use by someone other than the permit holder. Some have been legally owned by the same person for two decades, even if he or she hasn’t touched a shawarma since the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.”
Many regular New Yorkers are now weighing in with their support. Parents and students at one school in Brooklyn even raised money to help their local ice cream vendor pay the $1,000 fine he received for not having a permit.
Sean Basinski is Director of the Street Vendor Project.
