Street Vendors Aren't Enemies Of Sunset Park Shops, Advocates Say

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — A group that advocates for the city's street vendors wants Sunset Park to know that supporting the street-side businesses doesn't mean hurting the brick and mortar shops they sell next to.

Advocates with the Street Vendor Project, an initiative by the Urban Justice Center, brought together several of the neighborhood's longtime street vendors and business owners for a discussion with advocates and elected officials Wednesday to dispel the myth that the two types of businesses should be pitted against one another.

The myth, advocates said, has led to a lack of support for street-vendor protections like a bill the neighborhood's Council Member, Carlos Menchaca, has proposed. The bill would lift a decades-old cap on vendors that has created a dangerous underground market for licenses and instead create an independent enforcement agency to oversee the businesses.

"There are a lot of forces that are trying to stop it and we want to respond with information, and we want to respond with stories about what makes this so important for us," he said. "We know that the status quo does not work."

Some of those stories included benefits that street vendors can bring to a neighborhood, or even to a specific brick and mortar business.

Debbie Almontaser, of the Yemeni American Merchant Association, said street vendors often can fill cultural gaps in the city's food options — such as the halal vendors that popped up near the College of Staten Island when the university was lacking in options for its Muslim students.

Owners that man the vendor carts can also become the "eyes and ears" of the neighborhood, keeping an eye out for anything unusual and helping the streets stay safe, said Shrima Panday, of Chhaya Community Development Corporation in Queens.

Ali Sulaiman, the co-owner of Yafa Cafe where the meeting was held, said street vendors can even help improve business for the shops they are in front of. Sulaiman, whose cafe has been in the neighborhood 25 years, said he worked with a flower vendor who was outside the cafe for 15 years to get her permits because of this reason.

"We knew that just as important as it was for her to sell those flowers, she also brought (people) in for us," Sulaiman said. "Seeing flowers outside of the store only entices people to come in."

The group set out after the meeting to distribute stickers to four different businesses between 44th and 45th streets on Fourth Avenue that read "this business supports street vendors."

(Street Vendor Project).

Street Vendor Project has collected the names of 44 businesses that support street vendors, Co-Director Mohamed Attia said.

“Small businesses support each other all across NYC, in Sunset Park in particular, the response from brick-and-mortars owners was impressive," Attia said. "The owners and managers were so supportive to street vendors and they recognize them as a part of the fabric of their neighborhood.”

Menchaca said that part of the problem with the current system is that several different agencies — NYPD, the Department of Sanitation, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene — are responsible for overseeing vendors, which creates confusion surrounding the different rules.

Creating an independent agency would mean that all rules would be enforced by a single, trained staff, he said.

More streamlined laws will create a more reliable system for the largely immigrant owners who run the city's street cars, Menchaca and advocates said.

"There is no competition unless you become competitive," Almontaser said. "These are just fellow human beings seeking to make ends meet, pay their bills, pay their rent and put their children through school."