Red Hook Vendors Back (And in Debt) This Weekend

The Red Hook Latin street food vendors will finally be returning to the ball fields this weekend after a three month delay that has left some of the 13 merchants drowning in debt. The Brooklyn Paper has it that some have spent over $35,000 to purchase new stands and satisfy Health Department inspectors, who threatened to shut the vendors down last year until a huge public outcry forced the city to reconsider. But was it a Pyrrhic victory? “The losses are major,” said Marcos Lainez, who runs a Salvadoran papusa cart. “It’s going to take at least two and a half years to recover all the money we have lost.”