Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at a push by street vendors to change city permitting regulations that they say keep them from operating legally. We’ll also get details on a move by the City Council speaker in advance of a potential campaign against Mayor Eric Adams.
Thousands of street vendors in New York City — people who sell food or merchandise from sidewalk carts or tables — do not have city-issued permits. Many of them are undocumented immigrants and worry summonses for operating without licenses would leave them vulnerable amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort.
A package of bills before the City Council would change that dilemma. The bills would help vendors operate legally and protect them against deportation. At a rally outside City Hall on Thursday, vendors and lawmakers called on the Council to pass the bills quickly. My colleague Alyce McFadden explains:
There are far more street vendors than permits. The number of permits issued by the city has been capped since the 1980s. In 2023 there were about 5,100 mobile food vending permits in circulation. The cap means many vendors are forced to rent permits, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars, even though leasing permits is not legal. But the alternative — operating a food cart without a permit — can mean risking fines and criminal summonses.
Thousands of street vendors are given tickets every year, and the rate of enforcement has been going up, according to the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, a nonprofit group that assists vendors. Last year, more than 2,000 criminal summonses were issued to vendors, according to data compiled by the group — a significant increase from 2023.
Since President Trump returned to the White House last month, federal immigration agencies have targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal records in New York City and across the country. Mayor Eric Adams has cooperated with federal immigration authorities, meeting twice with Trump’s “border czar” and agreeing to let federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement set foot on Rikers Island, a major departure from the city’s sanctuary policies.
The crackdown has left vendors vulnerable and afraid, said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, the deputy director of the Street Vendor Project.
The proposed legislation would decriminalize vending, make permits more accessible and help mitigate some of the risks that immigrant vendors face, according to Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez, a sponsor of the package.
“New York doesn’t need to be providing more excuses for interaction between our migrant communities and law enforcement,” Sanchez said. “That opens us up to ICE raids. That opens our communities up to more destabilization, more fear than we are already facing.”
Of the four bills in the package before the Council, one would increase the number of licenses and eventually get rid of the citywide cap.
Sanchez said that making more licenses available would eliminate what some vendors consider the legal gray zone they live in — and would give them a place in what she called the “formal economy” of the city, “following all the rules, siting regulations and everything else.”
Another bill in the package would decriminalize vending without a permit or license. When vendors receive criminal summonses, Kaufman-Gutierrez said, they must appear in court in person and can face potentially serious consequences, even if the charges are ultimately dismissed.
“We cannot be trapping immigrants in a dual system of criminal and immigration punishment simply for trying to survive,” Councilman Shekar Krishnan, one of the sponsors of the decriminalization bill, said at the rally.
Julia Agos, a spokeswoman for the City Council, said it was committed to ensuring that vendors can operate safely. “These bills have been the subject of ongoing discussions within the body and are going through the legislative process, which is deliberative and allows for thorough public engagement and input,” she said in a statement.
That process has not been fast enough for Sanchez, who emphasized the urgency of the measures amid the immigration crackdown. “These street vendors, they want to do the right thing,” she said. “They want to leave the shadows.”
Weather
Expect a sunny sky and a high near 49. Tonight will bring clouds and a slight chance of showers, with a low near 42.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Suspended today for Losar.
The latest Metro news
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Protests at Barnard College: Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a sit-in over the expulsion of two students who had interrupted a class on Israel. A Barnard spokeswoman said the demonstrators had assaulted a campus employee who had to be taken to a hospital.
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A detention center reopens: The Trump administration has announced plans to reopen a 1,000-bed immigration detention facility in Newark, greatly expanding the government’s capacity to hold detained immigrants in the Northeast.
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The continuing battle over congestion pricing: Court filings revealed that the Trump administration wanted the toll program to end on March 21. Legal experts said that deadline was not enforceable.
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A no-show: Mayor Eric Adams withdrew at the last minute from a candidates’ forum hosted by a major union. He said his lawyer had recommended he skip such events at least until after a March 14 hearing on the Justice Department’s motion to drop corruption charges against him.
The City Council speaker may run for mayor
Another potential candidate is edging toward joining the already-crowded field opposing Mayor Eric Adams in the Democratic primary in June — Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker.
She has set up a citywide campaign committee, though she says she has not made up her mind about running.
The mayor and the speaker are not related, although they have a history: The two were high school classmates in Queens, and the mayor has often talked about how much he had in common with her. But after becoming speaker four days after he was sworn in as mayor in 2022, she has emerged as one of his principal adversaries. The Council overrode two of the mayor’s vetoes last year, for only the second time in two decades.
The speaker told my colleague Jeffery C. Mays that she would not make a final decision about running for mayor until after she delivered her State of the City address next week. At least seven other Democrats are running, among them Brad Lander, the city comptroller; two state senators, Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos; and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
Adrienne Adams is not well known outside political circles and would have to play catch-up, at least in fund-raising. There is also the past to be considered: The four other City Council speakers who have run for mayor were all unsuccessful, and the city has never had a female mayor.
But she is seen by her allies as an antidote to the ethical, legal and management issues facing the mayor, as well as someone who could assemble a diverse coalition against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is said to be nearing a run for mayor.
Letitia James, the state attorney general, is the most prominent Democratic leader in her camp. It was James who conducted an investigation that found Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women and created a hostile work environment while he was governor. Cuomo, who resigned after James released a report on the investigation, strongly denies the allegations.
METROPOLITAN diary
To Go
Dear Diary:
On a cold, rainy Friday night in Midtown, clutching an umbrella and with my face stuffed in a scarf such that I was barely able to see, I made my way to where my Chinese takeout was waiting.
As I pushed through the door, it was nearly as dark inside as it was outside, and the music was loud. Slightly disoriented, I gave the host my name.
He soon returned empty-handed.
“What did you order?” he asked.
“Sesame chicken and a roast pork bun,” I said.
“You need to go next door,” he said. “This is an Indian restaurant.”
— Nick Devor
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Makaelah Walters and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post A Push to Help Street Vendors ‘Leave the Shadows’ appeared first on New York Times.
