Protesters rally in Corona against alleged police harassment against street vendors. Photo by Shane O’Brien
Sept. 10, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
Around 100 street vendors and activists gathered in Corona Monday afternoon to protest against the NYPD’s alleged illegal destruction of vendor carts and to call on the New York City Council to grant more food vendor permits.
The protest, organized by the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, took place at the intersection of 37th Avenue and Junction Boulevard at noon on Monday, Sept. 9. It featured testimony from several food vendors who claimed they had been harassed by officers from the 115th Precinct in recent weeks.
A number of vendors contended that officers violated the 14th Amendment by not following due process when issuing tickets and seizing and destroying food carts.
Blanca Alvarado, an Ecuadorian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. five years ago, said she started street vending following the death of her husband, leaving her as the head of her household. She said her cart was surrounded and “ambushed” by officers on the evening of Aug. 23, 2024, stating that officers threw her food cart into the garbage rather than taking it back to the precinct.
Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director of Street Vendor Project, said officers violated the 14th Amendment during the incident.
“We very rarely see incidents like this,” Kaufman-Gutierrez said. “The NYPD should have have taken the property back to the precinct, Blanca would have gone to the precinct and received a voucher that lists out what they confiscated, and then she would have had the ability to fight that in court. What they did instead, in this instance, was throw her property directly into the trash.”
Alvarado said the food cart cost her $6,000 and said she did not receive an answer when she asked officers why they were placing her cart in the trash.
Kaufman-Gutierrez said officers took similar action against four other Corona-based vendors.
“The vendors should have, by law, the ability to go through a process of defending their rights. In that situation, the NYPD cannot just trash a vendor’s property.”
Caty Diaz, an advocate who works with Street Vendor Project, said Alvarado informed officers of her rights, but said her pleas went unanswered.
“She knew her rights. She informed the precinct of her rights, and they ignored the law and they broke it,” Diaz said. “We want answers. We want to know why the police threw out her property and violated the law.”
Ruth Palacios has been selling Mexican snacks on the corner of 37th Avenue and Junction Boulevard for the past 11 years and said she has noticed an uptick in harassment from local police officers.
A number of street vendors, including Ruth Palacios (center-right) and Blanca Alvarado (center), hold aloft tickets received during recent incidents with the NYPD. Photo by Shane O’Brien
Both Palacios and Alvarado said officers from the 115th Precinct advised them many years ago to obtain a mobile food vendor license, which is required by every individual who works as a street vendor in New York City. They said officers advised them that this would help officers overlook that their carts did not have mobile food vendor permits, which are required for every physical food cart and are currently facing a massive backlog.
“Back then, I asked if I got my license, would they bother me. They said no,” Palacios said. “But a couple of weeks ago, on the same day [that Blanca’s cart was disposed of], they didn’t bother asking for my license.”
Palacios said she was issued with a ticket for not having a permit, which comes with a $1,000 fine.
Lulu Ye, who has worked as a street vendor with her husband for seven years, alleged that she still suffers harassment even though she has all of the correct paperwork.
She said officers recently approached her husband when he was working by himself and demanded to see a permit despite being well acquainted with him. She added that officers issued her husband a ticket because the cart was oversized and refused to provide an interpreter for him even though English was not his first language.
“What Lulu is highlighting is that even when you have a license, when you have exactly what you need to operate in the city, there’s still harassment,” Kaufman-Gutierrez said.
Photo by Shane O’Brien
She also said street vendor enforcement is typically under the jurisdiction of the Department of Sanitation, but said DSNY representatives and NYPD officers both target street vendors on Junction Boulevard.
Kaufman-Gutierrez added that Street Vendor Project is calling for improved access to mobile street vendor permits to enable more vendors to obtain a permit, stating that the system is “completely broken” and outdated.
She said there are currently 20,000 people on a waiting list for a permit, while the waiting list closed to new applicants around eight years ago.
Street Vendor Project commended New York City Council for passing Local Law 18 in January 2021, which introduced 4,450 new food vendor permits over a ten-year period. However, the group states that just 127 of the 890 new permits had been issued as of May 2024.
Four bills recommending reform to the street vendor permit system have also been introduced in the City Council this year by Council Members Pierina Ana Sanchez, Amanda Farías, Shekar Krishnan and Jumaane Williams – known as the Street Vendor Reform Package.
The package aims to ensure that street vendors can access a business license and simultaneously aims to make the permit system easier and more straightforward to navigate.
“Nobody’s saying no enforcement,” Kaufman-Gutierrez said. “We just want it to be clear and people to be able to enter into the system and then work safely.”
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.
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