Results tagged “streetvendor”

Your fifteen minutes are over, gourmet food vendor truck vendors. NYC's crowded streets couldn't stop you, the Halal mafia couldn't scare you off, but the fancy food vending trend—which gave us everything from gay ice cream to, uh, Eurotrash—has finally screeched to a halt, now that Tyra Banks has stepped in.

Some food-cart vendors are serving up lunch specials with a hearty helping of identity theft. The NY Post reports the city's Department of Investigation is looking into widespread illegal renewal of food-cart permits by scammers who assume the identities of former food-cart operators. These permits—many of which belong to dead or emigrated vendors—are then renewed and resold for absurd premiums on the black market. Post reporters found some cart permits going for as much as $46,000, sold by a broker demanding, "Everything is in cash. Paid in full." Beyond the whole identity theft thing, of course, the scam also makes it harder for legitimate vendors to obtain permits, which, like taxi medallions, are issued in limited numbers. One Manhattan food-cart operator blames the way permit applications are handled for allowing these cheaters to prosper. Because permits can be renewed by mail, he says the scam becomes "an easy thing to get away with."

All "halal" broke loose in the Financial District around 6 p.m. Friday when, according to the Post, a street vendor rolled his food cart into a five-months-pregnant rival. The victim, Asmaa Abdelaal, says the incident was sparked by rumors that she'd been unfaithful to her husband; she tells the tabloid she was holding her 7-month-old daughter when the unnamed vendor "started saying terrible things about me, about how my daughter is not from my husband and how I sleep with all kinds of men. And then suddenly he pulled the wooden lever from under his cart and the cart rolled into the street, hitting us." After being knocked to the ground, the 24-year-old chicken-and-rice vendor was taken to New York Downtown Hospital and treated for back and side pain. But other vendors around Cedar Street say Abdelaal was the one at fault. One man, Eman Libelebide, tells the Post, "She wanted to get him in trouble. All the customers come to him. She gives me trouble, too."

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wants police to crack down on the dozens of vendors at Ground Zero. NY1 reports that in spite of a "2004 state law prohibit[ing] vendors from working the area bordered by Broadway on the east, West Street on the west, Liberty Street on the south side, and Vesey Street on the north," vendors still set up and sell various wares, including many 9/11-related items (like "Tragedy," the photo pamphlet memento!). Stringer said, "We don't think this should be a three-ring circus where profiteers are cashing in on one of the worst tragedy to befall the United States of America," but one vendor reasoned, "When tourists come, they provide us with their money that we use to distribute into this economy."

An Italian ice vendor who three years ago resold tubs of the frozen dessert that he had retrieved from a trash can was spotted back out with his cart yesterday. A cameraman for the NY Post eyed dirty icer Peter DeFiris at the Boat Pond where he served ices "without wearing gloves, and visited the men's restroom three times within 10 minutes." DeFiris was seen selling ices that he had pulled out of a Central Park trash can three years ago after he had been forced to dispose of them when he couldn't turn up a street vendor's license. The Department of of Consumer Affairs couldn't confirm whether or not DeFiris is operating his cart with a legal license this time around.