Second BK Churro Vendor Handcuffed As Crackdown Debate Continues

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — As protesters gathered at Broadway Junction station to rally around a churro vendor who was taken into handcuffs over the weekend, another "churro lady" was being taken into custody just three stops away.

Straphanger Rafael Martinez snapped a photo Monday afternoon of a churro vendor at Myrtle-Wyckoff avenues station getting put in handcuffs, just three days after the cuffing of another churro vendor at Broadway Junction station went viral online.

The incidents are what advocates are calling the latest example of aggressive police tactics in the city's subway system against low-income New Yorkers or people of color, which they argue will only become worse with the governor's plan to add 500 more officers to stations to fight things like fare evasion.

Martinez, like protesters who gathered Monday about the first incident, said he was disappointed that police are cracking down on vendors simply trying to make a living.

"She isn't a drug peddler or doing any harm to anyone," Martinez told Patch. "These women are trying to make ends meet in a city that doesn't look after it's less fortunate."

The incidents with vendors come weeks after two other arrests on Brooklyn's subways went viral online and prompted hundreds to take to the streets to protest the subway crackdown.

With the churro vendors, police have contended that in both cases the women were warned they cannot sell food in the subways without a permit.

The woman at Broadway Junction, who identified herself only as Elsa, had been given 10 previous summonses for selling food without a permit, police said. She was handcuffed after refusing to give her cart to police and released shortly after with a civil summons.

The woman taken into custody at Myrtle-Wyckoff had been asked to leave the station and came back anyway, police said.

"Officers attempted to issue her a summons but discovered she had 2 open warrants," NPYD spokesperson Det. Sophia Mason said. "She was handcuffed, issued a summons, and taken to court to answer for her warrants."

Police referred Patch to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office for details about the warrants, but the DA's office said they could not give out details without a name, which NYPD said it could not release because the woman was given a civil summons.

The incidents have even gotten the attention of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said at an unrelated press conference Monday that although he hopes a day comes when officers don't need to take vendors into custody, he agreed with the cops that they shouldn't have been there.

"The facts are she was there multiple times and told multiple times that’s not a place you can be, and it’s against the law, and it’s creating congestion, and she shouldn’t have been there," he said, referring to the video of Elsa.

But advocates contend that the churro vendors, like many of New York City's street vendors, are victims of a broken permit system, which makes it near impossible for them to operate legally.

A cap on the number of New York City vendors put in place in the 1980s makes it near impossible for new vendors to get permits, Mohamed Attia, executive director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center said Monday.

Straphangers from both stations contended that the churro vendors, who they see regularly, are a welcome part of the community, not a nuisance.

"This woman...is a cherished member of the community and deserves to be protected by the law, not victimized by it," said Sofia Newman, who took the now-viral video of Elsa's encounter with police.