Marco Tulio Valencia, 77, has been selling chorizos and arepas from a food cart for 23 years. Every day he pushes his cart, with the chorizos and arepas already roasting, along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens until he arrives at the corner of 83rd Street, where he is well known to the other vendors and to neighborhood passersby.
“I have always been on this corner, but now, at last, I am the owner of the whole business,” explains Valencia in telling us that nine years ago he finally got a permit for the cart in his own name. Before that, he had to rent a cart permit in order to sell food on the street.
“Licenses for vendors are easy to come by; what is almost impossible to get is the permit for the cart,” Valencia states with emphasis.
To sell food from a street cart in New York City, two kinds of permits are required, both of them issued by the New York City Department of Health (DOHMH). There is no limit on the number of persons who can apply for a vendor's license. What is difficult is obtaining the permit for a street cart.
In 1983, the city's Department of Health stipulated a maximum of 3,100 two-year permits and 1,000 temporary permits, valid from April 1 to October 31.
This limitation was instituted to reduce the number of food carts in the city, according to the advocacy organization Urban Justice and the data provided by DOHMH.
But the result has been the emergence of a black market in permits, whereby those who have permits rent them out to those who want to work.
“They rent the permits out for two years at $6,000, but it only costs them $200 to renew them. That's a fat business,” says Valencia. “Along there, on Roosevelt, most of the people you see working, it's because they are renting the permit from someone,” Valencia comments.
In spite of the fact that it is illegal to rent out permits, the business does exist, we are assured by the owner of Stevie's, the second oldest manufacturer of street carts in the city, and whom one of the vendors we interviewed denounced as a person who rents out permits. The Greek, as Stevie's owner is known, denied the accusation.
“Me here, I only sell carts. They have to get the permits on their own,” he stated.
According to Sean Basinsky, director of the Food Vendor Project at Urban Justice, which is dedicated to advocating for the rights of street food vendors of New York City, it is wrong to look on those who rent out permits as criminals.
“Nobody is getting rich charging $6,000 every two years. This problem belongs in the hands of the Health Department,” Basinsky argues. “The city ought to issue more permits or redistribute the existing permits to the people who are actually working the carts,” he adds.
The city's Department of Health confirms that renting permits for street food carts is illegal, and that the number of permits issued is regulated by the city's administrative code. It also says that the authorization for an increase in the number of permits must come from the City Council, not from the Health Department.
Nevertheless, renting a permit on the black market is the only possibility for people who want to sell food from street carts.
Rosa Tenecla and her husband, Chimbay, had to invest $8,000 to be able to sell fruits for six months of last year, from June through October, at 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue.
They both had to rent two permits for $2,000 each as well as buy two carts, which cost each an additional $2,000.
“Sometimes it's just not worth it; it's too much work. Besides that, they give you a lot of fines. The Police and the Health Department are always writing up fines,” Tenecla puts in.
Today, Tenecla and Chimbay are no longer selling fruits and vegetables. She is caring for their newborn and he is working in construction.
Nonetheless, as we walk along Roosevelt Avenue, in Queens, there is at least one food vendor on every block. Among the sellers of tacos, quesadillas, hot dogs, peanuts, ices, fruits, pork, and a multitude of stands attended by Hispanics, very few are as lucky as Valencia to own their permits.
The vendor at a peanut cart, who asked that his name not be printed in this article, has been working for 11 years selling food from carts on the street.
The company he works for has nine carts, which are spread around Jackson Heights. Not one of the nine is staffed by the owner of its permit.
“The guy who's behind the cart, who pays taxes and has a vendor's license, he's the one who should have the permit, not just get a 40 percent cut,” lamented this Ecuadorean vendor.
Working for someone as an employee is not illegal, explains Basinsky. “It might be that getting only 40 percent of the earnings is not fair, but it is legal,” he declares.
But for the vendors who earn only a percentage, the situation is more complex.
“What's messed up and most unfair is that the fines are given to us, the ones who are doing the work, and not to the owners of the permits. They are sitting at home making money,” complained the vendor.
The solution, according to Basinsky, would be to redistribute the permits. In his opinion, this is a ball the Health Department and the cart owners keep tossing back and forth among themselves, while those who work those same carts do not end up with all the earnings.
“It is illegal, and the police do nothing about it. Both sides benefit so no one wants to blow the whistle, but the system is inefficient,” Basinsky concluded.
