Earlier this week, 250 street vendors, elected officials, restaurant owners, and advocates rallied in the pouring rain on the steps of City Hall ahead of a critical Council hearing to advance the Street Vendor Reform Package.
The legislative reforms, which were first introduced in February 2024, are aimed at addressing vendors’ long-standing concerns about access to business permits and protection from police crackdowns.
The package includes four bills, the most important of which would add over 1,000 new mobile food vendor permits per year for the next five years, and continue to issue existing permits every year in five-year increments until there is no longer a cap on vending licenses. It is sponsored by Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez and Majority Leader Amanda Farias.
According to the Immigration Research Initiative, 75 percent of mobile vendors are forced to work without a license because of the city’s outdated cap. Currently, NYC has a total of 7000 mobile food vendor permits, all of which are taken until someone dies or rescinds it; there is not only a waitlist of close to 10,000 individuals, but the waitlist is closed to anyone who started vending after 2017.
“No new food vendor has the ability to get a legal permit at this time,” said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director of the Street Vendor Project. “A bill passed in 2021 introduces 445 new permits each year, but those are going straight to people on the waitlist. If you’re number 8000, that’s over a decade to wait.”
But beyond the issue of how many permits are available, critics say that the city’s approval of them has been far too slow. And those working without a permit are left vulnerable to ticketing and harassment from the police.
The inability to access permits has created an underground market where permits are brokered at a massive cost. “So many halal carts New Yorkers love are forced to rent permits on the underground market for upwards of $25,000 for two years (as opposed to under $1000 for two years under the city license),” said Kaufman-Gutierrez.
The cost of permits also leads to higher prices for customers — an issue mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calls “halalflation” and wants to end as part of his platform.
These reforms would not only provide justice, stability, and opportunity for street vendors but would raise a significant amount of money for New York. Researchers with the Independent Budget Office estimate that passing the Street Vendor Reform Package could have a net revenue impact of $59 million on the city economy annually.
The reforms would also reset relationships with enforcement agencies, which have become abusive; the NYPD and DSNY have been seizing street vendors’s property and issuing misdemeanors over the past year as part of Mayor Adams’s crackdown on “quality of life crimes” like Operation Restore Roosevelt and the shrinking of food vendors at Corona Plaza, once considered one of the best places to eat in New York, by the Times.
“In 2024, DSNY conducted more confiscations than tickets,” said Kaufman-Gutierrez. “We hope to flip the dynamic so that the city can focus on compliance versus ticketing and fines.”
Another bill, Intro 47, would repeal criminal liability for street vending, make it so that vendors can no longer receive a misdemeanor charge for not having a permit or a license, as well as for other vending violations. This is particularly important at this moment: Street vendors, 96 percent of whom are immigrants, are particularly vulnerable to the threat of ICE raids and deportation — even moreso under the Trump administration. From street vendors and beyond, the New York hospitality world is worried, with some in the industry living in fear. The misdemeanor charges for vending without a permit can quickly ensnare vendors and have drastic consequences on New Yorkers who are at risk of deportation.
The proposed reforms would also go a long way to supporting women street vendors who make up half of the total vending population, according to the Immigration Research Initiative, which reports that women are far less likely than men to hold business licenses and are disproportionately impacted by the lack of available permits.
“I think this would finally be a door that opens to dignify the work of street vendors and at the same time it would benefit thousands of people who go out every day to work and provide for our families and who are persecuted by the authorities,” Cleotilde Juarez told Eater. The celebrated Queens food vendor was named by the New York Times as serving one of the best dishes of 2024. She has recently been sidelined by NYPD enforcement due to lack of a permit.
“It is so important for the city to be recognizing that passing these reforms would benefit women entrepreneurs,” said Juarez, who is separated and has three children, ages 16, 13, 10.
It gives single mothers “the availability to bring the kids to the doctor or dentist and to be there if anything happens at school. The reforms would give us some peace and hope that every day when we show up for work we won’t be persecuted and instead we would be treated with respect.”
Advocates are hopeful after the daylong hearings, where restaurant owners, community boards, and city agencies came out to testify; a total of 83 people testified yesterday (in person and over zoom), with 71 in favor and only 12 in opposition.
Among the restaurateurs who testified was Sam Yoo of Golden Diner, Golden Hof & NY Kimchi. “I went to Stuyvesant High School just a few blocks from where we’re standing today at City Hall, and as a young 15-year-old, I was exposed to Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese cuisines (to name a few) all at an extremely young age,” he said. “To be exposed to these flavors is what has shaped what I do today as a chef and business owner. I support the Street Vendor Reform Package and am testifying in support of Intros 431 and 408 today. I call on all restaurants and New Yorkers to do the same.”
The push from advocates like the Street Vendor Project seems to have had some effect on Mayor Adams’s administration, who for the first time, called for “expanding the total number of street vending licenses to bring more street vendors into regulation and compliance” (watch here at 29:46). The remarks by Carlos Ortiz, a commissioner of External Affairs at the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, were the administration’s first-ever public comments about the Street Vendor Reform Package.
“While the administration does not yet support Intro 431, the testimony marked a major step to advance licensing reform,” said Kaufman-Gutierrez.
Now that the hearings are complete, the legislation is in line for a vote, which advocates hope will happen this summer, or early fall at the latest, before the end of session in December — so that they don’t have to re-introduce the bills in 2026.
“We want to talk with opposition to make this work,” said Mohamed Attia, managing director of the Street Vendor Project. “The City Council has the opportunity to make history.”
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