For more than seven years, Mohammad Liaquat Ali, a Bangladeshi food vendor, has been making his living selling hotdogs and other foodstuff from a cart parked outside City Hall. But in early January, the New York police, in collaboration with an organization called Liberty Plaza Greenmarket, confiscated his goods.

That same week, Mr. Ali filed a suit against the NYPD [and the city], alleging that police personnel had used the excuse that there was to be no more food vending on the street and took his hotdogs and fruit. Furthermore, Mr. Ali alleged that the representatives of Liberty Plaza Greenmarket requested him to move away from the vending site. When he failed to do so, the police issued him two tickets, one for his cart obstructing walking traffic by not having a 12-feet wide path around the cart. Police then confiscated his cart.

The honorable court voided the tickets issued by the police, stating that Mr. Ali was not breaking the law by selling his foodstuff. Following the hearing, Mr. Ali rushed to a nearby police station to claim his cart and discovered that all his goods were gone. The NYPD officers explained that the goods had been thrown away. Mr. Ali suspected that the officers had consumed the goods.

In the case filed against the NYPD and the city, Mr. Ali alleged that he had suffered a loss of $1,300. The case was filed with the assistance of the advocacy organization Urban Justice Center, under its Street Vendor Project. Mohammed Ali is on the board of the Urban Justice Center.

According to Sean Basinski, Ali’s attorney, the NYPD likes to accommodate Liberty Plaza Greenmarket and its high-end customers. On the other hand, Michael Hurwitz, executive director of City Greenmarket Program, said this was not a matter of competition, but rather a conflict over the site.

There are over 1,000 Bangladeshi street vendors New York City, who toil in hot weather or in the cold and snow, year in and year out. Their services are greatly appreciated by hungry tourists and passersby.

This is not the first time that Mohammed Ali, a native of the Comilla, Bangladesh, has fought for vendors’ rights. In 2004, he and 50 other street vendors came before the New York Supreme Court to fight a law that mandated that no street food vendor could set up his or her cart within 20 feet of any existing stores. Several hundreds vendors, including scores of Bangladeshis, were penalized for violating the law and paid $1,000 fines. At court, Ali argued that the law was inhumane and the fines were like a kick in the stomach for the hard-working immigrants vendors – the Urban Justice Center of Street Vendor Project helped them then as well.

The matter drew the attention of the Weekly Thikana and the mainstream press. Supreme Court Judge Carol Edmond criticized the sudden increase of the amount of penalty, from $250 to $1000, and ruled in favor of the street merchants. She ordered that law to be abolished, stating it was detrimental to the merchants’ attainment of the American Dream. As well, Judge Edmond ruled that the licenses of those vendors who had not paid the fine could not be invalidated and ordered that they be restored to them.

With this latest case, Mohammed Ali hopes that the rights of the industrious vendors again will be respected.