Street Smarts

LAST SUMMER, New York City surprised its 10,000-plus street vendors with an increase in fines. Fines within a two-year period would start at $50, but the fourth and subsequent fines were raised from $250 to $1000. The decision was made behind closed doors, without the mandatory public hearings. People outside of the vendor community might shrug-so don't get fined four times in a two-year period. Right?

According to Sean Basinski, founder of the Street Vendors Project, it's not that simple. "It's amazing, all the rules, and they differ according to what you sell. Only speech-expressive material is First Amendment-protected, for instance. Veterans have a special licensing preference. There's a whole list of streets where you can't vend on certain days and times. Even on streets where vending is permitted, there are lots of restrictions. You have to be a certain number of feet from crosswalks and building entrances. There are even rules about table dimensions.

"But the rules are full of discrepancies. Food vendors are allowed to be on subway grates, though other vendors are not. The rules are not available in multiple languages. Police get confused, and they make a lot of arbitrary decisions."

Consequently, many vendors receive more than three fines in a day or a week, much less a two-year period. Mounting, mountainous fines are threatening to put some vendors out of business-vendors whose hot-dog cart or hat-and-scarf table is responsible for supporting families both in NYC and abroad. Not only is the money itself a daunting hardship, one that can cancel out profits, but outstanding fines preclude vendors from renewing their licenses. And when vendors, who largely speak English as a second language, if at all, go to court over the fines, they find that there are no interpreters. A thousand-dollar fine is at stake, but judge, plaintiff and defendant are unable to communicate. According to Basinski, New York City does not give street vendors the same respect as it does other small businesses.

The Street Vendors Project filed a lawsuit to challenge the increased fine, and two weeks ago achieved what Basinski called "a thrilling victory." Justice Carol Edmead issued a preliminary ruling preventing the city from denying licenses on the basis of unpaid fines and halting future such fines, calling the process of the increase "unreasonable, unfair and clearly undemocratic."

This is a typical fight for the Street Vendors Project, which Basinski started in 2001 after graduating law school. Several years before, he was a street vendor, dishing out healthy burritos on Park Ave. and 52nd St. That summer, he experienced the street-vending life firsthand, and realized in law school that he wanted to work with and for the city's street-vendor population. He received grant money to found the project, and SVP now works with the Urban Justice Center, a 20-year-old umbrella organization that houses about half a dozen other projects that address issues as diverse as mental health, sex workers' rights, domestic-violence prevention and homelessness outreach.

SVP works for all manner of city vendors, from bagel guys to t-shirt sellers to book vendors, artists and craftspeople, disabled vets and others. Basinski, one other staffer and a host of dedicated volunteers do street outreach to vendors, finding them at their spots or at the garages where they pick up their carts to tell them about meetings or events. Someone is always in the office, where vendors drop by for assistance with harassment, tickets, tax issues, as well as web access and computer trainings. The project works to keep streets from being closed to vending, and to get more streets opened up. SVP also holds free legal clinics to educate vendors about their rights and responsibilities.

Basinski says that, for many vendors, "It's powerful to realize the potential of collective action." Soon, it could also be lucrative. As it stands, vendors generally don't receive anything when an ad company offers them a free umbrella emblazoned with a corporate logo. "Vendors don't realize that the side of a phone booth can go for $10,000 a year," Basinski notes. SVP has formed an advertising cooperative to funnel those ad dollars directly to the street-vendor community. The plan is for half of the money to fund the project, and the other half to go straight into vendors' pockets. It's entirely possible that vendors could earn more money off of their umbrellas or the sides of their pushcarts than their wares.

Membership in SVP, which costs $100 a year, brings legal assistance, voting rights, an ID badge, the quarterly newsletter, help with filing police complaints and a disposable camera and tape measure. o