» New York City The Street Vendor Project

One fine day

24 Apr 2012

It feels like we’ve been fighting for a lifetime. But the end might be in sight. Today the City Council will hold a hearing on the two bills we have been working on for nearly 18 months — Intros 434 and 435 — to lower the $1,000 fines vendors still pay for minor violations. It will be a good excuse to release the new report done by John Davis and Alfonso Morales from the University of Wisconsin – Fining The Hand that Feeds You. The report shows that lowering fines will put more money in the City’s pockets, too! And if you are not the reading type, just go and watch this gorgeous new video by Samuel Enblom.

City Hall rally

23 Feb 2012

City Hall $1000 fines rally credit William Alatriste for web square

Getting a law changed at City Hall requires lots of closed-door meetings. But you also need to mobilize your grassroots, show yourself to be a powerful constituency, and keep your issue in the press. All that is why SVP, VAMOS Unidos and the 125th Street Merchants Association held a rally last week at City Hall to demand a hearing on Intros 434 and 435. A more rainy, ugly day we never did see. Our beautiful signs all got soaked. But more than 400 vendors were joined by five Council Members and tons of media outlets, like the Times, Daily News , Post, and WNYC. The message was simple : we need to lower the $1,000 fines now !

Photo courtesy William Alatriste

Pushcart Fund

20 Dec 2011

Two years ago, we realized that vendors don’t just need legal advice, training, and a voice at City Hall. Sometimes they also need loans to expand their businesses — or simply maintain them in the face of high fines and harsh economic times. We raised $1,700 to help Mohammed Ullah stay in business.

But SVP has neither the capacity nor experience to keep raising and providing one-off loans on our own. We’ve teamed up with an experienced microfinance provider, the Business Center for New Americans, and today we are announcing the Pushcart Fund, the first ever dedicated loan fund for street vendors.

We are trying to raise $10,000, which will enable us to meet our goal, close the fund, and start giving loans to worthy people like Camille (above). Please check out our loan page and watch our two-minute video here. Will you help?

Vendors’ Day

18 Nov 2011

Politicians all love to wave flags and march in parades on Veterans Day, which was last week. But when it comes to supporting bills to help veteran street vendors (like Intros 434 and 435) our friends at City Hall sometimes are not so patriotic.

There are nearly 2,000 US military veterans working on the streets of New York City, all thanks to a 1894 state law recognizing that those who defend our country should at least get to put a 6-foot table on the public sidewalk. News flash: many vets are losing their livelihoods due to $1,000 tickets imposed by the Bloomberg administration. Maybe every Council Member not supporting the bills should have to tell SVP board member Bernard Haynes (pictured here, from his days in Korea) why the $1,000 tickets he got for vending on a subway grate are fair compensation for his heroic service.

Occupy SVP

17 Oct 2011

Not only is Zuccotti Park, the headquarters of Occupy Wall Street, just a few blocks from SVP’s office in Lower Manhattan. Its also very close to our heart. As protypical members of the 99%, street vendors are oppressed by wealthy elites who are “uncomfortable” with their presence, and yet who have the ear of policy-makers like our Mayor. Though vendors don’t have time to sleep in the park (and though some are sadly losing business,) SVP members are squarely on board OWS’s main goal: economic fairness. After our general meeting last week, vendors grabbed our banner and marched over to Zuccotti Park to perform our traditional “vendor power” cheer, to the delight of the OWS crowd. We are now participating in OWS working groups to help plan future events, while looking for other ways to collaborate with this historic movement.

Space for vendors, too!

27 Sep 2011

There are a whole lot of urban planners, thinkers and writers who care about public space and how its used. In New York, the Department of Transportation has won rave reviews the last few years for creating people-friendly public spaces, with bike lanes and plazas. But rarely do urban planners plan for street vendors. Luckily that is changing. Columbia University’s Urban Planning program spent a whole semester, with our help, studying vendors and preparing an in-depth report (downloadable here) about how the vending rules could be reformed to benefit the public. And last week, as part of Urban Design Week, we co-sponsored a public-space picnic (with Columbia and the Design Trust for Public Space) to demonstrate how legalizing vendors could enliven many desolate plazas, if only there were allowed to work there. Imagine that. Pictures here.

A message to City Council

29 Aug 2011

Our campaign to get rid of the $1,000 vending tickets, aka Intros 434 and 435 is going well, and a majority of City Council Members are now co-sponsors of both bills. But a few Council Members are hesitant to get on board without more knowledge. Which we fully respect. That is why we’ve been spending time in working-class Jamaica, Queens, talking to Council Member Leroy Comrie, the Deputy Majority Leader and his consituents. If videos like this don’t convince him, we don’t know what will.

Under the bridge

20 Jul 2011

There are two worlds in New York City, and the difference between them is the difference between the Union Square Greenmarket, where foodies peruse organic heirloom tomatoes at $4 per pound, and the Forsyth Street Market in Chinatown, under the Manhattan Bridge, where $4 will get you three pounds of onions, a pound of peppers, three pounds of bok choy, and a couple mangoes. With a dragon fruit thrown if you speak Chinese.

While the City rightly supports markets like at Union Square, it gave nearly 2,000 tickets to vendors at Forsyth Street Market the past two years, in addition to arrests, confiscation of produce, seizures of carts and equipment, and illegal parking restrictions. Why the unequal treatment? Unlike at Union Square, the immigrants who work and shop at Forsyth Street – 94% of them Asian-American — have no voice. Hopefully our new report, “Spoiled” will help change that, if even a little bit.

Dispute mediation

21 Jun 2011

One of the most difficult things about bringing together street vendors into one community is that sometimes they fight against each other for scarce sidewalk space. Ocassionally, when people are struggling like vendors are, it even gets violent.

Since no vendor has any legal claim to any particular spot, its all about respect. Its one thing to encourage vendors to respect each other’s spots, but what do you do when someone doesn’t listen? Last week, a group of SVP members (left) paid a visit to a supposed bad-apple vendor, to encourage him to keep a respectful distance from vendors who had spent years building up their spots. And you know what? He turned out to be a pretty nice guy. Here’s to all vendors working together in peace!

No competition

20 May 2011

There will never be a lack of brick-and-mortar businesses complaining about “unfair competition” from street vendors. Whether its Korean green grocers in the outer boroughs or Business Improvement Districts in Washington Heights, store-based merchants love to use their power against their less-developed neighbors selling from tables, carts or trucks.

But you know what? We’re sick of it. They can make any claim they want, but every bit of research shows that vendors do not compete with brick-and-mortar merchants. From now on, any journalist that presents the tired, “store owners said this, vendors said that” story without citing the available research on the matter is not doing their job. So, here it is: scholarly proof that vendors do not compete with brick-and-mortar merchants . The vendors rest. Thank you.