For Immediate Release (5/31/98):
[Contact # (718) 369-2111]
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
Virtually every newspaper, television and radio report on the new restriction of 144 streets to vending has described the restrictions as applying exclusively to food vendors. This is totally inaccurate. They also report the protest on June 3rd at City Hall as being a demonstration by food vendors. Artists, book vendors and general vendors are organizing and participating in this demonstration as well. At the public meeting on 5/28 announcing this protest, only two of the five speakers were food vendors.
The New York City Vending Ordinance restricts the vending of First Amendment protected fine art, books, religious materials (bibles, Korans, crucifixes, incense etc.), newspapers, political materials and all other written matter on any street where both food vending and general vending are restricted. Since June of 1997 when the U.S. Supreme Court denied Mayor Giuliani's appeal in the street artist case*, artists have the same rights as book and newspaper vendors and are correspondingly restricted from the same streets. Artists, book vendors and vendors who sell only printed matter are exempted from the vending license requirement. The section of the vending law that pertains follows:
[Title 20-Consumer Affairs; Rules of the City of New York; 20-473 Exemptions for vendors who exclusively vend written matter. "...except that on any street where both general vending is prohibited pursuant to section 20-465.1 of this subchapter and food vending is prohibited pursuant to section 20-465.1 vendors who exclusively vend written matter shall not be permitted to vend with the use of any vehicle, pushcart or stand..."]
The Street Vendor Review Panel and the Mayor's office are surpressing the fact that First Amendment protected materials are also being banned from these 144 streets for obvious reasons.
Firstly, there are hundreds of newspaper vending boxes on the 144 streets that have just been restricted. These boxes, as well as any sidewalk newspaper vending that is not done from a licensed newsstand, are now illegal. Secondly, the vending of art, religious materials and political literature are also now illegal on these 144 streets. Such an overbroad restriction on First Amendment protected materials will never stand up in court and would, if it were publicized, be attacked by every newspaper, religious organization and political group in the U.S.
The City's strategy is to spin media reports on this new restriction as being about food vending because even the supporters of food vending cannot deny that there are health, sanitation and safety considerations in the sale and preparation of food, the use of compressed gasses etc. There are no sanitation or health considerations in the vending of art, books, newspapers, political materials or religious artifacts. Any safety considerations, i.e. so-called "congestion", are already addressed by the 56 page N.Y.C. Vending Ordinance.
This ponderous document contains page after page of restrictions on the size and placement of food carts and vending stands (time, place and manner restrictions) for vendors. The rules describe the width of a useable sidewalk, the dimensions of a vending cart or display and when and where such a display can be used. These excessive rules already make legal vending almost impossible. Totally restricting streets is simply adding insult to injury.
The Mayor has recently been quoted as comparing street artists and vendors to the homeless people and squeegee guys he previously used his army of 38,000 police to ruthlessly eliminate from New York City streets. He claims the same complaints about human and constitutional rights and racism were heard at that time. Apparently, for Mayor Giuliani the First Amendment, like New York City's immigrant and minority vendor population, is just another piece of trash he wants swept off of "his" streets.
Based on the Mayor's increasing hostility to protest of any kind, especially when it's directed at him, we can expect numerous false arrests and Constitutional violations by the police at Wednesday's protest in City Hall Park. This protest will feature a new series of satirical portraits of Giuliani as a dictator to replace the ones seized by police on 5/27 while the Mayor spoke at Cooper Union art school.
It's time to expose Mayor Giuliani for the violator of civil liberties that he is. Long after he is a failed candidate for higher office the streets of New York City will still have artists and vendors.
Mass Demonstration This Wednesday, June 3rd City Hall Park 9 A.M. Protest the Restriction of 144 Streets (Rain or Shine) [*More street restrictions are planned]
Contact#: Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) (718) 369-2111
E-Mail: ARTISTpres@aol.com
*For more releases on this issue and to read court cases that pertain to vending go to: <http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html>
Also see: Newsday 4/20/98 cover story "Under Giuliani City Has Repeatedly Stifled Dissent"; N.Y. Times 5/7/98 pg B4 "For Giuliani, A Different Big Picture"; NY TIMES 5/24/98, "Giuliani Plans to Prohibit Food Vending in Wide Area".; NY TIMES 5/31/98 "Vendors Face a New Round of Street Bans".