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Vendors Banned From Dyker Heights During Holiday Season
By
Emily Suzanne Lever
Published Oct 18, 2019
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By
Emily Suzanne Lever
Published Oct 18, 2019
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Dyker Heights residents have successfully gotten street vendors barred from their neighborhood during the holidays. The community is famous for its seasonal, elaborate holiday light displays that would make Clark Griswold jealous.
In a unanimous vote, the City Council’s Committee on Consumer Affairs and Business Licensing on Thursday adopted a proposal to ban food and general street vendors from Dyker Heights from Thanksgiving to New Years. Brought by Dyker Heights Council Member Justin Brannan, the bill follows the local community board’s pleas to mitigate the chaos locals experience during the holidays, brought on by the influx of tourists who come to see the Dyker Lights.
Brannan said he looked forward to the “new and improved, vendor-free—hopefully—Dyker Lights.”
The ban affects the area between 10th and 13th Avenues, and between 86th and 81st Streets in Brooklyn, the center of the tourist influx. In previous years, the 68th precinct had already cracked down on street vendors in the area.
Council Member Margaret Chin, who also voted to approve the measure, cautioned that the conflict between street vendors and residents was part of a larger and unaddressed problem.
“I want to take this opportunity as a reminder that systemwide reform for vendor enforcement and licensing is possible,” said Chin, who has sponsored a bill to create a dedicated enforcement unit for street vendors and an advisory board to mediate between vendors and other users of public space.
Residents have long complained that their popular holiday light displays have their neighborhood so overrun with crowds that they can no longer enjoy the place they live year-round... but if you build it, they will come. Especially in the age of Instagram.
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dyker heights
Emily Suzanne Lever
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