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Q&A
Discussion on street vendor enforcement and agency responsibilities
2:21:01
ยท
3 min
Council Member Rivera raises concerns about the increase in criminal summonses for street vendors and inquires about NYPD's role in vendor enforcement. Commissioner Tisch responds, acknowledging issues with the current vending paradigms and explaining the division of responsibilities between NYPD and the Department of Sanitation.
- Rivera highlights the increase in criminal summonses for vending issues from 377 in 2019 to over 2,000 in 2024.
- Tisch explains that the Department of Sanitation was assigned as the primary agency for vending enforcement about two years ago.
- The commissioner notes that NYPD is called upon when DSNY staffing is not available, such as on weekends and nights.
- Tisch admits that the Department of Sanitation was not adequately staffed to handle vending enforcement at the required scale when she was the sanitation commissioner.
Carlina Rivera
2:21:01
Okay.
2:21:02
Thank you.
2:21:03
I wanna ask you about street vendors.
2:21:05
They are smallest small businesses, and there are many areas in my district that are known for their iconic vending culture.
2:21:13
And in order to support support these small businesses and legitimate vending, we also have to make sure that it's being conducted safely and responsibly.
2:21:22
A few years ago, city council passed vending reform that would move this enforcement to civilian agencies who issue civil summonses instead of criminal summonses, which is especially important in this climate where vendors immigration status could be complicated by a criminal summons.
2:21:39
In the past few years, however, we've seen an increase in NYPD issuing criminal summons for vending citations that have a civil summons option.
2:21:47
So in 2024, it was over 2,000 criminal summons for vending issues, which is a marked increase from the 1,200 in 2023 and three hundred seventy seven criminal summonses in 2019.
2:22:01
So I'm interested in how NYPD enforcement on vending issues is actually determined.
2:22:07
Is it is there a dedicated unit, any dedicated funding to vendor enforcement, and how is it determined if NYPD will conduct vendor enforcement instead of DSNY or a civilian agency?
2:22:20
And if PD is involved, what is the distinction between a civil summons and a criminal summons?
Jessica Tisch
2:22:25
Okay.
2:22:26
I think that maybe all of us, but certainly the two of us can agree that the paradigms that we have in New York City around vending are broken and need to be addressed.
2:22:43
This includes the laws, the operations, the whole thing.
2:22:48
As you know, I previously served as sanitation commissioner and was instrumental in the effort to get the sanitation department assigned as the primary agency for vending enforcement.
2:23:03
I believe that the model that we set up at the sanitation department about two years ago actually works quite well on the enforcement end.
2:23:18
Over the past two years, sanitation has lead.
2:23:21
But because of the staffing numbers at the Department of Sanitation, we weren't able to cover things like weekends, nights, as examples.
2:23:32
And so when that happens, we would regularly call on the NYPD to cover where DSNY staffing was either not available or not working.
2:23:49
Hope there were a lot of questions in there.
2:23:51
I hope that that answered many of them.
Carlina Rivera
2:23:55
It was really also how we are determining who is actually going to do enforcement because if it's gonna be Department of Sanitation, DSNY, we just wanna make sure that you're adequately staffed,
Juval Scott
2:24:08
that they are adequately staffed.
Jessica Tisch
2:24:10
In my opinion, the Department of Sanitation is not I shouldn't even be saying this because I'm not sanitation commissioner, but when I was there, the Department of Sanitation was not adequately staffed to handle vending enforcement at the scale required in New York City.
2:24:25
And that was a model that actually worked and one worth consideration of future investments.