Street vendors protest against over-policing in New York City
CORONA, Queens (PIX11) -- They are as much a part of life in New York as the lemon ice and hot dogs they sometimes sell.
Some street vendors said that over-policing vendor regulations are violating their rights. They're calling for a group of proposed protections for vendors to be passed into law, and they did so on Monday in a vocal way.
Dozens of street vendors, carrying signs and chanting, held a protest at the corner of Junction Boulevard and 37th Avenue. It's where, late last month, one of their own, a grilled meat vendor named Blanca Alvarado, was cited by police, and her cart was tossed by responding officers into a waiting city garbage truck.
On Monday, she came to the protest carrying a small stack of citations she'd been writing for various offenses, of which she said she was not guilty.
Alvarado also showed her vendor's license and said, through a Spanish interpreter, that she'd followed all of the rules for her grilled meat cart, on which she and her family had heavily depended.
"I started street vending because my husband died," she said.
The other protesting vendors said that they were also licensed but that the process to do so is slow and laborious and that even when they get approved by the city, law enforcement gets in the way of their businesses through overzealous enforcement. They called police actions against them illegal.
Licensed vendor Lulu Ye said that her case is representative of what many street vendors go through. She'd brought with her her own sheaf of tickets that police had written against her this year.
"When they come to here, we have to stop the work," she said. "They waste our time. Customers don't come to us to buy something. We lose the money."
The protesters, who are members of the Street Vendor Project organization, said that the NYPD 115th Precinct, in particular, overpoliced the vendors in eastern Queens. They noted that overzealous enforcement is an issue city-wide.
That's why they're pushing for passage of the Street Vendor Reform Platform in the New York City Council. It's a set of bills designed to ensure that more vendors get licenses more quickly, that a small business office focused on street vendors is established in city government, and that clearer enforcement guidelines are issued.
PIX11 News contacted the NYPD, seeking comment regarding the accusations that the department was over-policing. The department would only report that Monday's protest was peaceful and orderly. It did not address the allegations against its officers.
For its part, the protest's organizers, the Street Vendor Project, said that their hours-long demonstration, which also featured a mariachi band, dancing, and a full lunch for participants, was meant to emphasize how important street vendors are to the city's financial health.
"This is what a real, local economy looks like," said Carina Kauffman-Gutierrez, a director of the Street Vendor Project, "and we need the support to be able to formalize it."