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Council Member Menin questions SBS on support for street vendors
1:01:17
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133 sec
Council Member Julie Menin interrogates the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) about their support for street vendors since the implementation of Local Law 18. SBS Chief of Staff Haris Khan explains that their services are broadly accessible to all New Yorkers, including street vendors, but they do not disaggregate data on specific types of businesses served.
- SBS cites concerns about disincentivizing participation from immigrant communities as a reason for not tracking street vendor-specific data.
- Khan mentions collaboration with the Street Vendor Project and efforts to make services accessible, including translating pamphlets into multiple languages.
- SBS conducts general outreach on their services and partners with other agencies to inform businesses about licensing opportunities.
Julie Menin
1:01:17
I've got a number of questions for SBS.
1:01:20
So how many street vendors have received support from SBS since local law 18 went into effect?
1:01:41
But you must have data on how many street vendors the agency has provided services to.
1:02:03
Just providing informational outreach about how to work with various governments, agencies?
1:02:16
So what work are you doing to support the street vendor community?
1:02:56
And what about outreach?
1:02:57
Are you doing outreach to bids, to the community boards, to let people know about Local Law 18?
1:03:23
Okay.
1:03:23
I wanna go back to a series of questions that I started to ask on licensing, so I'm just gonna go back to that.
Haris Khan
1:01:29
Thank you, chairman.
1:01:30
So our services are broadly accessible to all New Yorkers.
1:01:32
That includes micro enterprises, storefront businesses, and street vendors.
1:01:36
We do not disaggregate the data of the folks that we serve throughout our business solutions.
1:01:46
So we've conducted outreach in coordination with our sister agency partners that we referenced at this hearing, but we do not disaggregate the data of folks that are consuming our services, particularly with the concern that that might actually disincentivize participation from a community that includes many immigrants.
1:02:09
To ask them to disclose whether they're a street vendor or not would lead to disincentivized participation.
1:02:21
Chairman, all of our work is in service to the city's small businesses, which includes street vendors.
1:02:26
And we're proud of the partnership we have with Mohamed Atiyah, the from the Street Vendor Project who serves on the Small Business Advisory Commission.
1:02:33
We're always looking for feedback.
1:02:35
In fact, it was feedback from SVP that led to the decision of translating our pamphlets for street vendors into Bulov, understanding that there is a community of street vendors that has that language need.
1:02:46
And so we're constantly in conversation with our community stakeholders and through the advisory commission, making sure that our services are accessible, remain accessible to New Yorkers across business types.
1:03:06
So, Chairman, we will we do outreach in general on all of our services that are available.
1:03:11
And whenever there are licensing opportunities or other opportunities that are made available, we'll partner with those sister agencies to conduct outreach and make sure businesses are aware and can benefit.