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Street vendors in Queens contend the NYPD is illegally trashing their seized carts
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Sep 9, 2024
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Arya Sundaram / Gothamist
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Sep 9, 2024
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Blanca Alvarado said she couldn’t bear to watch as a crew of NYPD officers loaded her vending cart into a garbage truck two weeks ago.
The small metal cart was a $6,000 pandemic-era purchase partially paid for by her children, and a lifeline the chronically ill widow used to support herself.
After police issued her three citations on Aug. 23, including one for vending without a permit, Alvarado said police barred her from retrieving her cart. Phone videos taken by Alvarado’s friends and shared with Gothamist show police loading the cart into a garbage truck at Junction Boulevard and 37th Avenue, in Corona, Queens.
“The truth is, I’m desperate,” a tearful Alvarado, 44, told Gothamist in Spanish, adding that she hasn’t found other work since her cart was confiscated. “I can’t pay the rent.”
Alvarado is among at least five vendors along Junction Boulevard in Corona whose carts have been confiscated and trashed by the NYPD in recent weeks, according to the Street Vendor Project, an advocacy group. About 50 vendors protested the action in a rally Monday – at the site where Alvarado said her cart was taken.
Street vendors in Corona, Queens, display citations they received from the NYPD for vending-related violations, including vending without a permit. The Advocacy group Street Vendors Project contends the vendors are illegally having their carts confiscated and destroyed by the NYPD.
Arya Sundaram / Gothamist
Matthew Shapiro, legal director for the Street Vendor Project, said if events transpired as Alvarado described, the police’s action was illegal, a violation of due process rights under the 14th Amendment, which bars government officials from "depriv(ing) any person of life, liberty or property without due process of the law."
“They can't just throw it into the back of the sanitation truck and take it away,” added Beth Haroules, a staff attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The NYPD and spokespeople for Mayor Eric Adams’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The alleged destruction of vendors’ carts in Corona is the latest in a series of controversial enforcement actions against street vendors in New York City, sparking outrage among vendor advocates and elected officials about what they contend is over-policing. Viral videos of some of the interactions and NYPD arrests circulate online.
Street vendors in Corona, Queens, display citations they received from the NYPD for vending-related violations, including vending without a permit. The Advocacy group Street Vendors Project contends the vendors are illegally having their carts confiscated and destroyed by the NYPD.
Arya Sundaram / Gothamist
Many vendors are ticketed for operating without one of the limited and highly coveted city vendor permits and licenses. For decades, just a few thousand such authorizations exist for the estimated 20,000 and counting vendors across the boroughs.
In recent protests, hundreds of vendors, many of them immigrants, have renewed their calls for City Council to lift the caps on vendor licenses and permits, and “decriminalize” vending by removing criminal penalties for vending offenses.
“The present system is unjust,” Bronx Council Member Pierina Sanchez, a main sponsor of the bill to lift the caps on licenses and permits, previously told Gothamist.
The uproar among Corona vendors comes amid a series of police crackdowns across the neighborhood targeting illegal vending, prostitution, and what various officials described as “quality of life” concerns, especially along the main thoroughfare of Roosevelt Avenue.
Recent NYPD crackdowns have also brought renewed attention to the agency’s controversial role in vendor enforcement. The NYPD has handed out an increasing number of criminal summons to vendors, despite a shift announced under the Mayor Bill de Blasio administration that was supposed to largely move vending enforcement to a civilian agency.
The Department of Sanitation is currently the city’s main agency in charge of vendor enforcement. Officials there had no immediate comment.
On Aug. 23, Alvarado was given three tickets – for vending without a permit, not displaying her license, and improper placement of her vending materials, according to photos of the citations shared with Gothamist.
Alvarado said she wasn’t given a voucher or another option to reclaim her cart, before she and other witnesses say police threw her property into a garbage truck.
When NYPD officers confiscate someone’s property, federal litigation from the 1990s and agency protocol require them to issue a voucher, so individuals can retrieve their property, according to Haroules, from the NYCLU.
Police may eventually be allowed to discard vendors’ confiscated property after an administrative or court process, and if other conditions are met, she added.
In 2019, New York City agreed to pay some $188,000 to more than 300 street vendors whose carts were allegedly confiscated and trashed without documentation, as reported by the local nonprofit news outlet THE CITY. That court settlement brought an end to a class-action lawsuit filed two years prior by the Street Vendor Project.
Since Alvarado lost her cart, she’s said she’s struggled to find work, with four spinal tumors and two hernias on her legs. She used to make $600 per week selling tripa mishqui, a grilled tripe dish from her native Ecuador.
Tagged
nypd
Race And Justice Unit
street vendors project
queens
Arya Sundaram
Arya is a reporter covering race and justice. Got a tip? Email: [email protected] or reach Arya on Signal at 512-650-8767.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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