10/11/2016
By Ivan Pereira
The City Council will consider a package of legislation aimed at bringing more grub to the streets.
On Thursday, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and six of her colleagues will introduce the Street Vending Modernization Act, which aims to double the number of food cart and truck permits over the next seven years and provide owners with more protections.
“This vital economic asset has long been ignored and even stifled,” Mark-Viverito said in a statement. “The number of food vendor permits has been capped since the ’80s.”
There are currently about 4,000 licenses for the merchants, leading to a waitlist of around 2,500 applicants and a black market for people looking to buy the permits for their businesses.
Besides the additional permits, 5 percent of which will be set aside for veterans and the disabled, the four-bill package will also create an office of street-vendor enforcement and a street-vendor advisory board to ensure the rules are enforced. It will also allow ill vendors to transfer their licenses to family members.
