Tala Diop took to selling socks, slippers and bucket hats on the streets of New York during the pandemic. He’s an immigrant from West Africa and has limited options for work.
Then, a few weeks back, under a street vending crackdown, officials from the Department of Sanitation seized his tables and goods, loaded them into a truck and dumped them at an impound lot in Brooklyn. It took him a full day and expensive taxi ride to get them back, not including fines he says he faced from the city.
“They take everything. They take the table, everything. That’s not right,” Diop said. “Why they choose me? I got a wife, I got two daughters. I have to pay rent. I have to eat.”
During the pandemic, many of the city’s lower-income and immigrant residents turned to street vending after losing jobs to COVID shutdowns. But now, as the city adjusts to a post-pandemic reality and brick-and-mortar retail struggles, the city is cracking down on street vendors and focusing on cleaning up streets.
A recent crackdown on Fordham Road is just the latest example of growing tensions between the city and street vendors.
The future of a weekly Sunset Park market was thrown into uncertainty after an Easter Sunday crackdown by the Parks Department and NYPD erupted into chaos.
In March, Flushing City Councilwoman Sandra Ung called on the city to enforce street vending regulations.
And at the start of this year, the city gave Brooklyn Bridge vendors the boot and deployed police patrols to make sure they didn’t return.
Cleaning up the streets
After the Adams administration moved oversight of street vending from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to the Department of Sanitation in April, a busy stretch of the Bronx has been mostly wiped clean of unlicensed street vendors, the Fordham Road Business Improvement Disrtrict says.
The difference in enforcement is “like night and day,” said Wilma Alonso, the president and CEO of the Fordham business group.
Sanitation workers first posted warning notices, then issued five summonses and confiscated five vendors’ belongings, according to a source at the sanitation department. According to the BID, the daily street vendor count dropped from around 120 per day down to closer to 70.
“We always knew that this was an issue that impacted public safety, and so we just appreciate it for that to finally been recognized, and for enforcement to finally be happening,” said Albert Dalipi, Deputy Director of Outreach of the BID.
Dalipi said that unlicensed street vending can crowd the sidewalks and create a trash problem for the area — some of the BID’s main areas of concern. They also can detract from brick-and-mortar businesses, facilitate the sale of counterfeit and stolen goods, block bus lanes and bring rats and illegal dumping.
Area businesses who say the street vendors are hurting their bottom line after being hammered by the pandemic have also welcomed the crackdown.
Mojib Ullah, a manager at Kid City on Fordham Road, said that the street vending has posed a big problem for his business.
“Everything has a limitation,” Ullah said. “Too much vendors are a problem. I know they want to survive also, but there is a limitation and it’s out of limit. They’re always bothering the business: The same items we’re selling in the store, they’re selling the same item in the street. Sometimes they block in the front.”
Zee Ahmed, a clothing store manager on the corridor, said that he sympathizes with the street vendors, but that the surge in vendors since the pandemic has impacted his business.
“It definitely affected business after the pandemic, when the vendors started, it definitely affected our business,” Ahmed said, adding that the vendors crowd the sidewalks and make the area feel more congested.
“The business is not the same and the spending is not like it used to be … People don’t have the spending money they used to,” he added.
A path to survival
But for vendors, the stepped-up enforcement means a threat to their livelihoods. Many took to vending during the pandemic, when they had few other options. It transformed the area, going from just a couple of fruit stands and ice carts in the summertime to tables upon tables of jewelry, masks, tacos, bags and mangos lining the strip.
“A lot of people are living with that fear of this is their only method of survival at the moment. Most folks who are on the corridor are immigrants who really have no other option but to vend,” said Jennifer Salgado, a lead organizer at the Street Vendor Project, an advocacy group.
Salgado said that after the switch to Sanitation enforcement, vendors are more afraid to go out and sell, since Sanitation confiscates their items.
Samuel Owusu, 32, scrapes together a living by selling $2 bracelets and $40 homemade bags on Fordham Road in the Bronx. He started vending during the pandemic to pay for his rent and groceries, in addition to supporting his family both in New York City and at home in Ghana.
“If they sack us from here, I’m going to be out of options,” Owusu said. “I don’t block the road. I don’t do nothing wrong here. I don’t sell fake things. I want to pay my bills. I want to eat. I’m not going to steal. And they’re still worried about us.”
Miriam Salinas, 57, has been a street vendor for decades.
“They treat us like criminals,” she said of the Sanitation enforcement.
Salinas said that many of the vendors have banded together and now keep an eye out for enforcement officials in a big WhatsApp group chat.
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There’s an estimated more than 10,000 street vendors in New York City, the number of general vending licenses is currently capped at 853 and the number of citywide food vendor permits at 2,900, making obtaining a license nearly impossible.
Bassio Saul, 32, said he’s tried to apply to get a general merchandise permit in the past.
“You go, but you can’t get it,” he said. “They put you on the waiting list. But what do we do in the meantime? We can’t just stay home, without working, without paying our bills, supporting our kids or family?”
Nicolas Veintimilla, a second-generation street vendor, said he first applied for a street vending license three years ago and was placed on a waiting list.
“During the pandemic, I couldn’t work,” Veintimilla, 24, said. “This was another option, selling here. So I started selling Jibbetz, like the charms for shoes. And then I switched to this, coins and bills.”
Veintimilla sells rare coins and bills from a rolling cart. On a good day, he makes around $130. He works six days a week.
“It’s not right. There’s no justice with that,” he said of the crackdown.
