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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Andrew Gustafson, Vice President of Turnstile Tours & Studio, on Street Vending Reform
5:45:19
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137 sec
Andrew Gustafson, Vice President of Turnstile Tours & Studio, testified in support of Intros 431 and 408, emphasizing the challenges faced by street vendors in New York City. He highlighted the importance of street vending for immigrants and refugees, and argued for clearer regulations and pathways to legal vending.
- Gustafson's company has worked with hundreds of vendors and hosted tours about the street food industry
- He stressed that current regulations make it difficult for vendors to operate legally and put them at risk of deportation
- The proposed bills would provide education, support services, and a pathway to legal vending without increasing the number of vendors
Andrew Gustafson
5:45:19
Good afternoon.
5:45:21
My name is Andrew Gustafson.
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I'm here to testify today in support of intros four thirty one and four zero eight.
5:45:26
I'm the vice president of Turnstyle Tours, a social enterprise that works with nonprofit organizations to develop and operate tour programs across New York City.
5:45:34
Over the past fifteen years, our team has had the honor to work with hundreds of vendors while leading tours about the city's street food industry.
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We've hosted tens of thousands of visitors from around the world.
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And on our tours, we try to make visitors understand the experience of street vendors navigating the regulatory maze in New York City.
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Not just the chapter and verse of the regulations, but how they play out in the real life of vendors.
5:45:57
The virtual impossibility of receiving a legal permit, the constantly shifting rules and arbitrary decisions of enforcement officers, the endless tickets and summons issued by a half dozen different agencies, the constant fear of having your livelihood and perhaps even your freedom taken away.
5:46:12
For many, street vending is not a chosen profession but one born of necessity.
5:46:16
We're in the midst of an unprecedented global migration crisis with more people now displaced from their homes than at any other point in human history.
5:46:25
New York City has been a refuge for so many people, and street vending is how they have survived as so many people have attested to today.
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We should be creating pathways for people to make better lives for themselves in this city and in this country.
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Instead, the current regulatory regime makes it harder for people to make a living, and it places vendors at greater risk for arrest and deportation.
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Bad street vending policy is bad immigration policy, and it makes the New York City government and the city council complicit in the cruel, racist, and destructive mass deportation agenda of the Trump administration.
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What street vendors want and what all New Yorkers want is a clear, fair, and well regulated system where small businesses can be successful and contribute to their communities.
5:47:02
Vendors want to operate legally.
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These bills offer them a much more viable pathway to do that.
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Vendors want to follow the rules.
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These bills will provide them with the education and support services they need to do that.
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These bills will not lead to more street vendors.
5:47:16
The vendors are already there, but instead they will be legal and regulated, thus better protecting the vendors themselves and the public.
5:47:28
Yep.
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So thank you so much for listening to my testimony.
5:47:32
I hope you will support and move these bills forward.
5:47:35
Thank you.
Josh Bloom
5:47:25
Wanna Can
Julie Menin
5:47:25
I ask you to wrap up, please, and then submit your testimony?