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Pedestrians who walk down Broadway in SoHo any day of the week can’t help but notice the plethora of street vendors populating local sidewalks. On a busy summer afternoon, one typically finds carts selling coffee, halal food, hot dogs, roasted nuts, and juice, as well as tables vending anything from sunglasses to jewelry. These vendors are joined by rolling racks offering vintage clothing, pushcarts with sliced mango, displays of eccentric art, coolers of prepared lunches, and ice cream and taco trucks.
To many, these vendors are integral to the fabric of New York City streets, offer affordable food options in a busy corridor with limited brick-and-mortar options, and provide a convenient small-scale alternative to the typical merchandise shopping experience. To others, the presence of vending can raise worries about local quality-of-life issues, such as contributing to the additional congestion of the neighborhood’s busy sidewalks, fumes from cart generators or idling food trucks, or concerns about food safety or improper sanitation practices.
The Initiative views street vendors as the district’s smallest businesses and are supportive of those who follow the City’s vending rules, including operating in allowed locations. That said, we are aware that vendors operating in illegal locations, such as food carts sited too close to doorways or within crosswalks, food trucks vending from active metered parking, or vendors operating without licenses is a chronic issue in the district that has become more intractable in recent years. Still, we work to promote an orderly environment in which operators follow applicable rules and limit adverse impacts on other users of the district’s public space or those occupying adjacent buildings.
As we hear from constituents regularly about this topic, we have decided to offer some answers to frequently asked questions:
The operation of a vending business is generally governed by the City’s Administrative Code and the Rules of the City of New York. These rules are linked to in further detail, along with educational resources, on the New York City Department of Sanitation’s website. Rules govern aspects of vending including required licenses and permits, cart/stand size, allowed locations, parking rules for food trucks, and more.
In 2016, the Initiative published an illustrated guidebook summarizing the rules laws and rules that apply to sidewalk vending, with detailed illustrations and comprehensive maps showing where vendors are allowed to legally vend within the district. Note that the guidebook does not include every law/rule and in particular does not include laws/rules that are specific to disabled veteran vendors. The maps within are also no longer 100% accurate due to addition/removal of a few building entrances. However, the Guidebook remains a handy reference for property owners, retailers, residents and vendors.
As one travels across New York City, they will see vending of all types across the 5 boroughs in all kinds of environments where people gather, from tamale sellers in Jackson Heights to nutcracker hawkers on Rockaway Beach to tourist art vendors in Central Park and high end food trucks in the Financial District. Similarly, the challenge of regulating vending is also seen in neighborhoods throughout the city, and has been viewed for some time as an intractable issue, despite the efforts of many to address it. That said, many vendors are attracted to the SoHo Broadway corridor as a place to do business given its high concentration of foot traffic. But this is also where the challenge lies: as a busy neighborhood with heavy pedestrian traffic and at peak times packed with visitors, workers, and residents seeking to navigate to their next destination, sidewalk space is limited. Every added activity node or physical object such as a food cart adds to the pressure on our shared space, which is why vending from illegal locations in particular remains such a key concern for the Initiative.
Enforcement of street vending has shifted multiple times in recent years. In January 2021, the Office of Street Vendor Enforcement opened within the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, taking over vending enforcement from the New York City Police Department. In March 2023, the Office of Street Vendor Enforcement was moved to the New York City Department of Sanitation, which currently holds primary responsibility as the coordinating agency enforcing street vending rules.
The New York City Police Department continues to provide primary enforcement related to some forms of vending, such as counterfeit goods sales and violations of rules related to parking such as food trucks illegally vending from active metered parking spaces or crosswalks.
In addition to directly fielding concerns about illegal vending from stakeholders, as stewards of the SoHo Broadway corridor’s sidewalks and streets, we regularly observe the state of vending in the district and report conditions to the Department of Sanitation directly and via 311. For instance, recent field surveys have observed as many as 30 vendors operating within the SoHo Broadway corridor in violation of rules on a given date. The most commonly observed violation is food or general vendors operating too close to a crosswalk (under 10 feet) or doorway (under 20 feet). Food trucks vending from parking while meters are in effect, vendors operating without conspicuously displaying a valid license and general vendors occupying too large of a footprint (over 8 feet long x 3 feet wide) are also regularly seen in the SoHo Broadway corridor. While these conditions are comprehensively reported to the highest levels of the Department of Sanitation, we are not aware of any enforcement actions the agency has taken to date in the district despite issuing regular requests and conducting a walkthrough with agency staff.
In summer of 2023, counterfeit goods vending was at a zenith, with spreads of counterfeit merchandise nearly covering the entire sidewalk on Canal Street and nearby sections of Broadway. The Initiative was able to successfully engage NYPD’s Community Link multi-agency initiative, who effectively addressed the issue, as described by Executive Director Erin Piscopink in this video. While counterfeit sales continue to be present in the corridor (which we report to our local precincts), they are observed to be much smaller in scope and no longer overwhelm the public space to the degree seen a year ago, thanks to NYPD prioritization of this issue. The Initiative also reports food trucks vending in violation of parking rules to NYPD.
In addition to reporting on conditions in the district, the Initiative advocates for common sense legislation to ensure a rational regulatory framework citywide through its membership in the NYC BID Association; SoHo Broadway Executive Director Erin Piscopink serves as Co-Chair. For example, the BID Association has lobbied in opposition to proposed City Council legislation that would allow food carts to be placed closer to the center of the sidewalk if street furniture, planters, or other obstructions do not allow for placement adjacent to the curb (current rules allow food carts to be no further than 18 inches from curb).
If you observe a vendor in violation of rules such as operating from an improper location or not displaying a permit/license, you can report the incident to 311. You can also report food trucks violating parking regulations to 311. In addition, the Initiative invites you to share your 311 filings with us so we can better understand the key problem locations our stakeholders are encountering. We appreciate your interest in helping us keep the district orderly, functional, and safe for all.
