Thread: NYC Street Vendors Protest Recent Confiscations, Fines

http://www.wnbc.com/news/9450001/detail.html

NYC Street Vendors Protest Recent Confiscations, Fines

POSTED: 6:48 pm EDT June 29, 2006

Email This Story | Print This Story

NEW YORK -- Earlier this month, workers from the city's police, health and sanitation departments showed up at Jose Luis Marin's vending carts in the Bronx.

They confiscated his two ice cream and fruit carts and issued him a $1,000 fine because he didn't have a proper permit. A week later, they confiscated the carts again and issued another $1,000 fine.

"He says he feels bad," said Gloribel Vega, a street vendor activist who interpreted for Marin, a 40-year-old immigrant from Mexico. "He feeds his family with that cart."

On Thursday, Marin and his wife joined about 75 other vendors to protest what they say has been an "alarming" number of recent cart confiscations and "exorbitant" fines.

The protesters, who say they can't get the proper permits because of legal limits on the number the city can issue, also implored the City Council to pass legislation that would eliminate the caps.

"These fines are financially crippling," said Rafael Samanez, an organizer for Street Vendors for Justice, the coalition representing about 600 street vendors that organized the protest. "The caps need to be eliminated."

Figures on the number of recent confiscations and fines were not immediately available, city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokeswoman Joyce Hernandez said.

The city requires a vendor selling food from a cart to have a mobile food vending license and a mobile food vendor permit for the cart. The health department said it conducts more checks on the carts in the summer, when there are more of them on the streets, to protect public safety.

The city's Administrative Code limits the number of year-round permits for mobile food carts to about 3,000, and the number of summer permits is limited to 1,000, said the department, which claimed it did not immediately know how many people are on the waiting list for the permits.

Organizers of Thursday's protest estimated as many as 6,000 vendors who might have vending licenses are operating without food cart permits -- like Marin.

City Councilman Charles Barron has introduced legislation that would get rid of the limits, which were created more than two decades ago. Barron is trying to get a hearing for the bill in the Consumer Affairs Committee, said his legislative director, N. Joy Simmons.

The protesters, mostly vendors and their relatives and other supporters, stood on a sidewalk on Broadway between City Hall Park and the offices of City Council members in lower Manhattan.

Wearing yellow Street Vendors for Justice T-shirts, the protesters held up handwritten signs: "I need my cart to feed my kids" and "It is time to eliminate the caps on licenses."

They chanted: "Si, se puede! Yes, we can!"

At the protest, Simmons said she once sold cosmetics from a vending cart in Manhattan. She said it gave her the opportunity to be an entrepreneur and "the flexibility to be a mother."

"This kind of policy hurts families and entire communities," Simmons said, adding that vendors add "richness and vibrancy to the city."

Yea, and a tons of them are ILLEGALS to begin with but that doesn't bother Bloomberg one iota---as long as they have their little permits it's open season for the less than clean vendors. Board of Health where?

They chanted: "Si, se puede! Yes, we can!"

"Si, se puede?! Yes, we can!" go back to Mexico if you don't have legal authorization to be in my country!

This is UNBELIEVABLE! I know many people in NYC who would have loved to have a foodcart service but were denied for year after year because of quotas and regulations. It is New York City after all and there are already so many vendors in conpetition. But the real problem is hygiene, food service guidelines and sanitation. Becuse these people think it's a free for all they can get away with murder. Nice excuse they want to feed their family. No city officials shed any tears for Americans who wanted to sell food on the sidewalks. Next these infidels will be selling pigpies at Lincoln Center because 'why not?'. I almost feel like this is being done on purpose to incite the public and cause an uproar. Aren't we all Americans and most of us have national pride? America means so much to us that I have a hard time believing this is coincidental. Or that some people care more for criminal illegals than they do for their own people.

Wearing yellow Street Vendors for Justice T-shirts, the protesters held up handwritten signs: "I need my cart to feed my kids" and "It is time to eliminate the caps on licenses."

They should be able to get their carts back at the border on their way home to Mexico.

They chanted: "Si, se puede! Yes, we can!"

Blah, blah, blah - English!!!!

Originally Posted by Brian503a

http://www.wnbc.com/news/9450001/detail.html

NYC Street Vendors Protest Recent Confiscations, Fines



Wearing yellow Street Vendors for Justice T-shirts, the protesters held up handwritten signs: "I need my cart to feed my kids" and "It is time to eliminate the caps on licenses."

They chanted: "Si, se puede! Yes, we can!"

Seems that they always need some kind of change in our laws to "feed their kids". What a joke!! Get a real job!! Or maybe just roll your taco cart on down to Tiajana and dont let the back door of the USA hit you in the ass on your way out.