The City Council last month passed legislation that decriminalizes most street vending violations in New York City. Sponsored by Queens Council Member Shekar Krishnan, Intro. 47 removes misdemeanor criminal penalties for general and food vendors and reduces them to civil offenses instead. The legislation comes amid a sharp rise in NYPD enforcement: officers issued over 9,300 tickets to vendors in 2024, more than double the total in 2023, according to City Limits. With 96 percent of the city’s street vendors being immigrants, according to the Immigration Research Initiative, criminal penalties heighten the risk of deportation under the Trump administration’s intensifying immigration crackdowns.
“No vendor should face jail time because of a broken vending system,” Krishnan said in a statement. “With Donald Trump’s growing attacks on immigrants, passing Int. 47 is more important than ever to protect our immigrant street vendors.”
“I am grateful to Speaker Adams and my colleagues in the council for supporting and passing this important legislation. Street Vendors are our city’s smallest businesses, and my bill takes action to make sure unlicensed vending does not mean jail time and a criminal misdemeanor.”
Currently, street vendors in New York City can face misdemeanor charges, fines of up to $500, and up to 30 days in jail for violating vending laws. Offenses include operating too far from the curb or using cardboard boxes to display merchandise, according to Gothamist. Under Intro. 47, these time, place, and manner violations would instead carry civil penalties of up to $250.
Vendors operating without a license or permit currently face misdemeanor charges, criminal fines ranging from $150 to $1,000, and up to three months in jail. Under the new bill, the city would downgrade these offenses to violations—non-criminal offenses—with fines of up to $1,000.
The Street Vendor Project, a group working to advocate for vendors as part of the Urban Justice Center, has long pushed for legislation to protect street vendors.
“From the tamaleras of Sunset Park to the souvenir vendors of Times Square, street vendors fold our city’s unrivaled diversity into our streets and sidewalks and represent the heart of our economy,” Mohamed Attia, managing director of the Street Vendor Project, said in a statement.
“We applaud the City Council’s decision to repeal criminal liability for street vending, a critical step towards achieving an equitable system for our city’s smallest businesses.”
The bill now heads to Mayor Eric Adams, who has not said whether he will sign or veto it, although the legislation was passed with a veto-proof majority of 40 votes in favor.
Under Adams, the city has taken a tougher stance on unlicensed vending. In November 2023, the city reopened a scaled-down version of the Corona Plaza market in Queens after shutting it down the previous summer. And in January 2024, officials banned vendors from all 789 city bridges.
Intro. 47 is part of the broader Street Vending Reform Package, a series of bills aimed at easing restrictions on street vending across the five boroughs. Other components include Intro. 431, which ensures all vendors can access licenses; Intro. 408, which would create a New York City Small Business Services division to provide educational resources for vendors; Intro. 24, designed to unlock more legal vending locations; and Intro. 2521, which would ensure licenses are issued annually in accordance with the law, according to Queens Latino.
Maryam Shuaib, community program organizer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, celebrated the bill’s passage.
“For far too long, street vendors have taken the fall for a dysfunctional system that lacks accountability,” she said. “From unrealistic permit caps to unnecessary interactions with law enforcement, our smallest business owners put everything on the line to make ends meet. Intro 47 puts an end to this unsustainable dynamic.”
She continued: “The City Council’s support of Intro. 47 is one critical step toward honoring the rights of New York City’s most vulnerable business owners. We celebrate this victory, and we are determined to continue our work in passing the full Street Vending Reform Package.”
Another bill headed to the City Council, sponsored by Bronx Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez, would lift the cap on street vendor permits. The legislation aims to tackle the city’s significant backlog of vendor applicants—so far this year, the city has issued only 15 new licenses, according to the New York Times.
A law passed in 2018 authorized the city to issue 445 new permits annually, but testimony at a City Council hearing in June revealed that only 382 vendors received licenses in the three years since the law took effect.
Sanchez told the Times that some street vendors may wait decades for a permit, and that roughly 70 percent of vendors currently operate without licenses. In her district—District 14, which includes Kingsbridge, Fordham, University Heights, and Tremont—she estimates that 80 to 90 percent of vendors lack licenses, “not because they don’t want to follow the rules, but because we’ve created a system that locks them out.”
Distributing more licenses could generate up to $59 million in revenue for the city if all vendors on the waitlist received a permit, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office.
RELATED:
