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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Mohamed Attia, Managing Director of Street Vendor Project, on Street Vending Legislation
1:56:52
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144 sec
Mohamed Attia, Managing Director of the Street Vendor Project, testified in support of Intro 431, which would increase the number of vending licenses available. He emphasized the rich history of street vending in New York City and argued that the current system is failing due to limited licenses, not vendor behavior.
- Attia claimed that 75% of food vendors and 37% of merchandise vendors operate without proper permits due to license caps.
- He argued that Intro 431 would formalize existing vending businesses rather than add new vendors to the streets.
- Attia criticized the slow rollout of Local Law 18, citing the waiting list as a major bottleneck in issuing new licenses.
Mohamed Attia
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Good afternoon.
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My name is Mohammad Atiyah.
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I'm the managing director of the Sheetvendor Project.
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I wanna thank chair Menin and the council members for the opportunity to justify.
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Sheetvending in New York City has a long rich history.
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In the sixteen hundreds, people were selling oysters.
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In the eighteen hundreds, the furthest pushcart market was created by Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side.
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Thousands of immigrants and minorities followed suit to make a living and live the American dream here in our city.
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When we think of sheep vendors, think of Ross and Daughters, Macy's, the Halal Guys, so many names.
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We think of families moving up the economic ladders, sending their kids to college so they can have a better future, becoming community leaders and elected officials while serving their communities and providing affordable products and services.
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For decades now, the shipping system has been set up to fail everyone.
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Some people like to blame the vendors for that, for the city's failure.
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They blame the vendors for not having a business license.
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We heard it and saw it over and over again.
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Here's a crazy fact for you.
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Vendors want to follow the law, but the city is not allowing them to do so, thanks to the limits on the number of licenses.
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Intro 04/31 is a huge step forward to address this dilemma that vendors and New Yorkers are dealing with.
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For decades, the city has been trying to target vendors with heavy enforcement, and it has not worked.
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Constant enforcement of inequitable laws mean keeping the vendor's community in a vicious circle of poverty.
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This bill offers a different approach.
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It offers a solution for the system to finally work, hopefully for everyone.
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Some folks are under the illusion that this bill will add more vendors to our city streets.
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However, the fact is our city the fact is in our city, 75% of vote vendors operate without the proper permit.
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37 of the merchandise vendors operate without a license.
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This bill will not add more vendors to our city.
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It will only formalize the existing vending businesses.
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After passage of local law 18 and after three years of implementation, we're seeing the scene is not really changing.
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The rollout is very slow.
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will.
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And we know that the rollout we heard today from the health department, there is a huge bottleneck called the waiting list.
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They are doing their part as an agency, but nothing is really moving forward the way it should be.
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Thank you.
Julie Menin
1:59:01
I'm just gonna ask you to wrap up.
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I know you'll submit the I