Illegal vendors are a common view throughout the city’s subway system, but not all travelers receive them in a good way.
During a recent visit from our sister publication, Amnewyork, to several subway stations in Queens, sellers offered articles such as soft tacos, churros, hot coffee and even jewelry. Buyers watched the exhibitions and many bought a fast refreshment on their way to the train.
And, on a recent night in Jackson Heights, the Mezzanine of Station 74th Street-Broadway-where the lines E, F, M, R and 7-were full of vendors, carts and customers, so much so that the passengers had to break through the platform to address or find a comfortable place to wait for the train.
Of course, subway vendors are not limited to Queens. Throughout the city, in streets and train stations, sellers install carts, stalls or boxes of boxes to sell their products. While for vendors, many of whom are immigrants who fight to get ahead in the United States, this is part of daily life, some subway passengers wonder why they are allowed to be in business.
“It should not be allowed. Buy in stores that really pay taxes,” said Dale Durrell, from Staten Island.
Margot Brie, a New York, said that his greatest concern is security and if food vendors keep the appropriate cleaning standards.
“We have observed sellers to cut mangoes with the same knife and without water to clean it,” he said. “In addition, sellers manipulate food and fruit with their hands without gloves, sometimes sneezeing on them or touching everything they have in sight. I am surprised that no more people get sick throughout the bacteria and unhealthy conditions.”
Who can sell and who is not?
New York City demands that business owners have a general seller license to sell goods or services in a public place other than a store.
However, obtaining a permission is not such a simple process. There are exceptions to permits rules. For many street vendors and subway that speak English as a second language, getting the appropriate permits and licenses for their sales becomes even more difficult above a complex system of rules and processes that must navigate.
For example, NYC 311 system establishes online that a seller general license is not needed to sell food. However, in another part of the website, the system says that to sell food or drinks from a cart or truck, sellers need a mobile food sales permit and a mobile food sales license.
According to the MTA, selling products and food in the subway system, regardless of having a permit, it goes against the NYC transport rules of behavior, and the NYPD is responsible for enforcing those rules.
“The sale within the transport system is illegal, and the NYPD continues to address this situation by applying the law, which may include expulsions, fines and/or arrests,” said a spokesman for the NYPD public information attached commissioner office. “The NYPD has issued more than 300 fines this year for sale or illegal application in transport.”
Sellers want permits and they are also ‘fed up’
The street trade, with or without permits, above or under the earth, has been part of the New York culture for most of its history. In past times, many street vendors and subway were foreigners. Today, approximately 96% of them are immigrants.
“The street trade has been part of the New York structure since its inception,” said Mohamad Attia, general director of the project of street vendors at the Urban Justice Center. “Essentially, these people have been selling in the streets, making a living, and a large majority of sellers today are immigrants.”
A survey conducted in September by organizations such as the George Mason University and the Immigration Research Initiative, a group that studies the integration of immigrants in the United States, found that there were around 23,000 street vendors in total last year.
Of the respondents, many sellers came from Mexico (30%), Ecuador (24%), Egypt (20%) and Senegal (7%).
Approximately 75% of food vendors in the survey were not authorized. The defenders attribute this to the laws approved in 1979 and 1983, which limited the number of licenses granted by the city. The lack of permits also leads to the lack of government regulation and supervision on food vendors and other goods.
“Many people don’t know that sellers can’t get a license at this time,” said Attia. “Interestingly, sellers are required to have a license, and if they sell food, they must have a license and permission, but the city does not allow them to obtain the license or permit that is required to be considered a legal business.”
Attia argued that the system is designed to fail anyone who wants to obtain the right permits. The city limits the general licenses of sellers for non -veterans to 853, and permits for food vendors to around 3,000.
Thousands of possible vendors are in waiting lists that are incredibly long to obtain appropriate permits and licenses. As a positive point for sellers, a bill of the New York City Council of 2021, known as Local Law 18, created 445 additional licenses for food vendors every year. But more progress is needed, according to Attia.
“Hunting vendors are also fed up with how obsolete the sales system is. We need to see a real change,” he explained. “We need a system that works, that serves vendors, but also to the New Yorkers, consumers and all in the city.”
Support for vendors
However, not all New Yorkers want illegal sellers to leave the subway. Many travelers told Amnewyork that they support the efforts of the vendors to make a living and even said they have tried some tasty snacks of sales.
“As Latino, I see the Latin community selling and there is a need for everything,” said Joseph Deleon, from Brooklyn. “Basically, they are selling food to get money. Money is necessary to live here in the United States. Without money, you can’t live.”
He said that sellers work hard to keep their families themselves.
“They show how hard they work to prosper and have a better life,” he added, mentioning that the churros he has tried in the subway are “very good.”
Maddy Edalow, a New York that uses the subway system, said “supports 100%” sellers in trains.
“I think people who want to work in this country should be able to do it,” he said.
Another Staten Island traveler said that “she doesn’t care” about the issue of licenses and even praised the food that sellers sell.
“It’s one of the freshest things you can find out there,” he said.
