1/25/99
by Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)<ARTISTpres@aol.com>
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
Read below and then click here to learn more about this issue, and come to the Feb. 10 Rally to support New York street vendors!
On 1/21/99, in a move typical of the Giuliani Administration, the Mayor's Street Vendor Review Panel decided in secret, and without public hearings, to arbitrarily restrict vendors from an additional 100 Manhattan streets. The new restrictions apply to First Amendment protected artists and book vendors as well as food carts and general merchandise vendors. All members of the Street Vendor Review Panel are Giuliani appointees.
The restrictions were lobbied for by powerful business interests led by the Alliance For Downtown New York, the Grand Central Partnership, the Fifth Avenue BID and the Times Square BID all of which have direct ties to the Giuliani Administration and which have been working for years to eliminate vending within their districts. On the same date the new ban was announced Mayor Giuliani appointed a close friend, Alfred C. Cerullo, as President of the Grand Central Partnership [See NY Times 1/21/99 "Finance Commissioner to Head Grand Central Business Group"]. Until this appointment Cerullo was Finance Commissioner. From 1994 to 1995 Cerullo was Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, which previously controlled the vending issue.
In a 1/23/99 NY Times article ["Compromise Plan on Vendors Is Approved"] the ban was described as a "compromise" and "fair" by the panel. Exactly who the panel compromised with in making its decision is unclear since its members are all directly appointed by the Mayor and are known to be extremely anti-vendor. During its entire history the panel has refused to meet with leaders of any legitimate group representing vendors. It ignored polls taken last year that showed 80-90% of New Yorkers wanted vendors to remain in the areas affected by the ban and by its latest decision is knowingly violating the NY State Constitution and the Laws of the City of New York regarding the right to sell art and printed matter on City streets.
The new ban completely eliminates all vending on an additional 100 streets from 8 AM to 6 PM or alternately from 7 AM to 7 PM, in effect making vending illegal at all hours during which a vendor would want to work. Previous to the new ban there were already hundreds of Manhattan streets where vending was completely restricted. Almost without exception restricted streets are in the City's largest and most influential BIDs (Business Improvement Districts).
New Vending Law: Int. #110
In addition to the Mayor's new vending ban the City Council is expected to pass a new vending law next month that will in effect eliminate independent non-corporate vendors from the City. The plan, proposed law #110 [available on the web at
http://leah.council.nyc.ny.us/leg98/int0110.htm], places severe new restrictions and numerous new requirements on vendors. The new ordinance was in large part written by the City's BIDs according to sources including lawyers for the City Council that are drafting the new law. Among its new restrictions, the bill proposes forcing vendors to competitively bid for "warrants" which grant a one year exclusive franchise for a specific location.
An alternate proposal being considered gives City agencies the right to arbitrarily assign the warrants, a system which would undoubtedly lead to widespread bribery and corruption.
The warrant system being proposed closely mirrors the one now in effect in City parks. That system exempts the Parks
Department from following a 1995 law limiting vending permits to one per person. As a result the Parks Department has turned virtually all food vending from carts over to two corporations, M&T Pretzel and the Big Apple Vending Corporation, based on a competitive bid [See NY Times City Section Sunday 1/10/99, "As Permits Expire, a Vending Dispute Gets Knottier"]. The bidding system resulted in the elimination of independent food vendors from City Parks due to the necessity of making multi-million dollar bids. A single food cart location now bids out for as much as $270,000. The Parks Department made $4.7 million dollars last year from food cart concessions alone.
Because the vending corporations have a complete monopoly on food vending in the parks, they can charge exorbitant prices and face no competition whatsoever.
Throughout this controversy the Street Vendor Review Panel has refused to talk, meet or negotiate with any legitimate vendor advocates or to inform them about their meetings or hearings. Instead, Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington has repeatedly and secretly met with representatives of the Big Apple Vending Corporation and other large companies that employ vendors, distribute food or manufacture vending equipment but that do not represent independent vendors. Unlike independent vendors most of whom are immigrants, speak little English and have no understanding of the intricacies of New York politics, these corporations are in a position to make political contributions or otherwise directly influence the decisions of the Street Vendor Review Panel and City Council members. In the 1/10/99 NY Times City Section article, the president of the Big Apple Vending Association made his now familiar claim that large vending companies provide better service to customers than individual cart operators and are easier for the City to regulate. As part of the negotiations involving the new vending regulations, Big Apple and other corporations, that once held thousands of vending permits between them, hope to have their multiple permits restored.
Ironically, even if these companies get their multiple permits back they will eventually be excluded from the streets by the competitive bidding aspect of the warrant system. Corporate giants including Disney and McDonalds have approached City Hall and expressed interest in acquiring the warrants in order to use vending spots for advertising and merchandising.
To understand the Giuliani Administration's plan for vending it's instructive to compare it to the Mayor's other recent initiatives granting corporate interests that support his political future the very rights being taken away from the general public. At the same time parking meter fees are being dramatically increased the Mayor's friends at Goldman Sachs are given free reserved parking on the City's most crowded streets. While poor and homeless New Yorkers are illegally denied welfare or food stamps, corporate interests are given billions in needless tax write-offs. Political protesters who dare to oppose the Mayor's policies are obstructed from their Constitutional rights by the entire legal and police power at the Mayor's disposal because they might "congest traffic". At the same time corporate interests like Macy's, the Times Square BID and the Yankees are encouraged to organize massive parades and marketing endeavors at tremendous taxpayer expense on these same streets. While First Amendment protected street artists are illegally harassed and prosecuted for allegedly "congesting" streets, film crews, are given a virtually unlimited right to congest and inconvenience entire neighborhoods despite the protests of neighborhood groups.
The City's hundreds of First Amendment protected street artists and book vendors and its thousands of independent food vendors and general vendors are a legitimate and important part of the economy and culture of New York City. Long before Mayor Giuliani or the BIDs began carving up the City for their personal and political gain, vendors served the community and helped make New York great. Long after the Mayor and the BIDs are a footnote in the history of corruption and bad government vendors will still be serving the public on these same streets.
Speaking for myself and the street artists I represent, we look forward to setting up art displays in the exact locations the Mayor's Street Vendor Review Panel has just restricted in order to legally and politically challenge this new ban. We invite all vendors and the public to join us in fighting against Mayor Giuliani's disdain for our rights and for the public will.
Please pass this on to any vendors you might know.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) (718) 369-2111;
Email: ARTISTpres@aol.com; Homepage <http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html>
NY Times January 23, 1999 "Compromise Plan on Vendors Is Approved" By JULIAN E. BARNES
Seven months after the Giuliani administration backed away from a plan to ban street vending in large parts of midtown and downtown Manhattan, a city panel approved a compromise measure on Thursday that still bans food carts and other vendors during their most lucrative hours, but from far fewer blocks than its original plan did.
Last spring, as part of his quality of life campaign, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani called for limits on street vendors, saying they congested the city's sidewalks. On May 24, the Street Vendor Review Panel, made up of three administration officials appointed by the Mayor, voted to ban food vendors from 300 blocks in Manhattan and other street vendors from 261 blocks.
But in June, after howls of protest and threats of lawsuits, Giuliani took the unusual step of retreating from his original proposal. Administration officials said at the time that the Mayor would not give up his efforts to limit street vending but made clear they were looking for a compromise.
With the unanimous vote this week by the panel, the city is offering the first part of that compromise, officials said. Current law does not allow the panel to restrict the number of vendors on each block. That issue however, is one that the City Council is expected to debate in hearings next month.
The new regulations passed Thursday would largely prohibit food vending on 100 blocks, mostly in midtown, just north of Grand Central Terminal and south of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and downtown Manhattan, near City Hall and the financial district. It would limit other vendors, who sell everything from books to incense, on 49 blocks.
"We have liberalized the restrictions," said Joseph B. Rose, chairman of the City Planning Commission and a member of the review panel. "These are the most acutely congested streets."
The restrictions vary from block to block, but, generally, in the financial district, vendors would have to stay off restricted blocks from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M., Monday through Friday. In midtown, vendors would generally have to avoid the restricted blocks every day from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M. Food vendors would also be restricted on two blocks in Queens, on Rockaway Boulevard between 148th Avenue to 175th Street, and on five blocks in downtown Brooklyn along Fulton Street.
Carl Weisbrod, the president of the Alliance for Downtown New York who had pushed for the restrictions, praised the compromise. But vendors said that the restrictions would only increase congestion by crowding vendors onto other streets.
The new restrictions will go into effect 30 days after the list of blocks is published in The City Record, the city's daily journal of public transactions. Curt Ritter, a spokesman for Giuliani, said the list should be published by the end of the month.
Dan Rossi, vice president of the Big Apple Food Vendors Association, said the new plan allows more vending downtown, but maintains most of the original plan's restrictions in midtown Manhattan.
"They didn't cut us much slack," he said. "You are pushing vendors into a smaller area. You are just concentrating the problem."
City Councilman Noach Dear, a Brooklyn Democrat who was added to the review panel after the original ban was approved, said the new plan was a significant concession by the Giuliani administration, a compromise he supported.
"They realized they can't ban everything," Dear said. "They wanted to be fair."
The City Council is planning to hold hearings in late February to consider a more comprehensive solution to the vending issue, Dear said. He added that he wanted to ban vending on streets by law, not by the decision of the panel. He also said the Council should pass legislation limiting the number of vendors on each street.
Leaders of the city's business improvement districts and vendors have tried to negotiate with the administration and the City Council over the law. But the two sides remain apart. The business districts want one push cart per intersection, the vendors want to allow four and oppose block by block bans, Rossi said.
Weisbrod said business executives downtown had pushed for the restrictions because the push carts and supply vans for them had caused congestion on the sidewalks and on the streets.
Weisbrod said he had not seen the final list, but supported the compromise. "It is a substantial cut from what we asked for, but I hope the restrictions are enough to address the problems," Weisbrod said. "My hope is that the elusive, just result has been achieved here."
But the result did not seem just to some of the vendors who were selling food yesterday on blocks that would be restricted under the new plan. Pablo Ruiz, 38, has sold $2 tacos and $1.75 burritos at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 38th Street for four years, but the new restrictions would limit food vendors there.
"Oh man," Ruiz said when told of the plan for new restrictions. Ruiz said he catered to Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants who work in nearby factories in the garment district, and would lose all his customers if he was forced to move.
"This spot is for Mexican people," he said. "This is where my people are."
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.