The thing that is missing is a single example of anybody getting sick from Churro Lady’s food cart
The past 10-15 years I’ve seen a big push for “cottage food laws.” Cut outs of little to no regulation for individuals to start a business selling homemade food. Usually focused on low risk items like donuts, muffins, jam, popcorn. They seemed to be tailored around things like farmers markets—not traveling vendors. Each state has different requirements (perhaps a training class, labeling requirements, a kitchen inspection) but in most states you can start selling immediately.
I don’t see why NYC can’t have similar laws focused on street vendors (I would have guessed they already did). In this case, she bought churros from a bakery to sell them piecemeal—donuts.
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Further back than that. But reform focused on parks and parking rules in high traffic areas.
Those prep kitchens and what have tend to run through thing like CUNY schools and big churches.
All tend to be clustered in more central and wealthier parts of the city. Outlying neighborhoods left out. A lot of it’s not open to undocumented immigrants. Basically there’s just gaps, and the worst of it falls on people who are already impoverished.
A lot of the illegal vendors you’re talking people who speak minimal English and don’t really have a couple grand to get licensed. None the less buy equipment or a cart compliant with the health code, or take time off to get a food handlers certificate.
A lot of the reforms were spurred by excitement and criticism around upscale food trucks launched by trained restaurant staff, or white color workers changing industries. So a lot of people and areas got left behind.
Legitimizing the grey street food markets kinda pressed the low end out. If one of these vendor used to work through the Redhook fields selling sliced mango for a buck, but that’s now policed and inspected. They can’t go there anymore. Similar clusters of unlicensed vendors further out didn’t get the same legitimize and promote approach. So there are still late night and weekend clusters in places.
A lot of those people moved into the subways.
The last couple of years there was effectively “decriminalization”, no legal change just NYPD policy not to crack down on such vendors as part of increased policing in subways.
Which seems to be the lax enforcement Yang is referring to.
As far as I’m aware it’s still illegal (particularly in subways), and still treated as a policing issue rather than a health code and regulation thing.
Last I heard more people in NYC had gotten sick from Chipotle than unlicensed food vendors.
ETA: Also I’ve eaten those churros, repeatedly. Damn good, nice lady.
Did you read what I wrote? My objection is painting the broad brush and characterizing all food cart vendors as part of the demographic that “War on the Poor” applies to. To that end, I’ve tried to give some insight into how the rich ones are benefitting off the sympathy to the poor ones. Why is that a problem for you?
The lack of actual journalistic research into the spectrum of who is selling, why they sell and who they work for and how much they work isn’t helping solve the problem if the rich are diving into the loopholes that some people want to have exclusively for the poor.
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