Legal

LITIGATION

Ousmane v. City of New York The Street Vendor Project filed this class action lawsuit (on behalf of all NYC vendors) to overturn the Environmental Control Board’s unannounced 2003 increase in vending fines. Judge Edmead granted us a preliminary injunction on September 28th, 2004, ordering the fines be decreased to their prior levels. Litigation continues, however, because the city has refused to send refund checks to all vendors.

Read the Complaint, Read the Memo of Law

Mastrovincenzo v. City of New York The Street Vendor Project represents two graffiti artists, Christopher Mastrovincenzo and Kevin Santso, who have been arrested and harassed for selling their work because the police did not believe it was “art.” In a very important opinion on April 8, 2004, federal judge Victor Marrero granted our motion for a preliminary injunction and ordered the city to let the vendors vend. The city is appealing.

Pro bono counsel Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering

Read the Judge’s Decision (official source)

People v. Kaminskaite The Street Vendor Project represented a Russian craft vendor who was arrested and prosecuted in New York City Criminal Court on charges that she sold goods on the street without a license. In 2002, we filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that defendant’s sale of her artwork was First Amendment-protected expression that did not require a license. All charges against the vendor were dismissed.

Read the Motion to Dismiss

City of New York v. Dominguez The Street Vendor Project represented a Lower East Side hot dog vendor in New York State Supreme Court after the City seized his pushcart and sought its forfeiture in 2002. We filed a motion to dismiss the forfeiture on the grounds that, among other things, it would be unconstitutionally cruel to take away his livelihood for a minor, first-time violation. The City settled the case and returned the vendor’s property.

Read the Motion to Dismiss

Cummings v. City of New York The Street Vendor Project filed this lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in 2002, challenging New York City’s arbitrary and unfair harassment of a food vendor in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. The lawsuit sought a judicial declaration that the City’s enforcement of an obscure 1938 peddling regulation against the vendor was improper. The Court granted preliminary relief, allowing the vendor to return to her spot pending final resolution of the case.

Pro bono co-counsel: Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger, & Vecchione

Read the Complaint, Read the Motion for Prelimary Injunction