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Q&A
Coordination between DSNY and NYPD in responding to street vending complaints
0:58:24
·
169 sec
Council Member Amanda Farías inquires about the coordination between the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) and the NYPD in responding to street vending complaints. Joshua Goodman from DSNY provides insights into their processes and interactions.
- All complaints about street vending should go through 311, not 911.
- DSNY responds to 311 calls, council member requests, and community group concerns.
- NYPD involvement is requested by DSNY for issues like counterfeit goods or drug-related matters.
- DSNY coordinates street vending operations around the city.
- Goodman advises against business improvement districts or corridor organizations calling local precincts directly, recommending they reach out to DSNY instead.
Amanda Farías
0:58:24
Last question, chair.
0:58:28
Can we talk little bit about, and I wanna kind of pull out a little bit of what I think council member nurse was speaking about with the police intervention or when they respond versus when you folks respond.
0:58:39
When you're responding to complaints or your enforcement agents are going out and responding to complaints, is that solely coming from a 311 call?
0:58:46
And are we seeing that the NYPD response calls are coming from 911 calls?
Joshua Goodman
0:58:52
You know, it's an interesting thought that these two separate call centers are what's causing differentiated enforcement.
0:59:02
All complaints about street vending would go to 311.
0:59:05
If you called 911 and said there's somebody vending outside my store, they would say, This is of 911.
0:59:10
Hang up and call 311.
0:59:11
But it is possible that 911 calls about things like drug dealing would lead to NYPD intervention.
0:59:19
I couldn't speak to it specifically, although I could reach out to them.
0:59:23
311 calls are one of the largest drivers of our enforcement, but they're not the only one.
0:59:31
Another huge piece of it is what we hear from council members directly.
0:59:35
Can you please come to this location in my district?
0:59:37
I'm hearing a lot from this business that they need support.
0:59:41
And also other local community groups.
Amanda Farías
0:59:46
So I guess we're trying to figure out when, how does the NYPD end up on-site?
Joshua Goodman
0:59:53
I can speak to operations where NYPD is there at the request of DSNY, and those are times like counterfeit goods, drugs, where we think there's a criminal matter involved, where we've gone out and investigated
Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez
1:00:04
it
Joshua Goodman
1:00:05
and said this is not pure time, place, manner street vending.
1:00:09
There's something else happening here.
1:00:11
And that's where NYPD would be involved.
1:00:13
As far as other NYPD operations, I don't know what triggers But DSNY coordinates the street vending operations that take place around the city.
Amanda Farías
1:00:22
And I know you can't answer this because you're not the NYPD, but have you heard at least in your like interagency communications that sometimes we're having, whether that's business improvement districts or corridor organizations calling directly to the local precinct because maybe they work with CAU or they work with their community affairs and they're negating telling their businesses or telling patrons to call 311 first.
Joshua Goodman
1:00:50
You know I'll say if that's happening, which I don't know that it is, it would mean that those groups are making a lot of calls because they certainly call us and ask for DSNY enforcement.
1:00:59
We hear from bids and from merchant associations kinds of groups all the time.
1:01:04
If they're also calling precincts, that would be a duplicative effort, and I would say on the record now that they should not be doing that and they should reach out
Evan Sweet
1:01:10
to us directly.
Amanda Farías
1:01:11
Okay.
1:01:11
Thank you so much for responding to my questions.