Activists that support the rights of street vendors say that cases of harassment, such as those reported in the Bronx where Department of Health officials hassle street vendors to not sell their goods on the streets, shouldn't occur. Activists say that the lack of licenses is the source of all the problems.

Organizations like Esperanza del Barrio (Hope for El Barrio) and Proyecto de Vendedores Ambulantes (Street Vendors Project) have agreed to support the association VAMOS Unidos (Vendedoras Ambulantes Mobilizando y Organizando en Solidaridad – Street Vendors Mobilizing and Organizing in Solidarity) in this struggle. VAMOS Unidos, located in the Bronx, is asking for greater understanding from authorities to let street vendors earn a living by selling their products.

To earn a living

Street vendors who don't have licenses to sell their goods say that practicing their profession is very difficult; they stand in solidarity with their comrades in the Bronx, identified with their role as fathers and mothers who go into the streets and run the risk of working without a license in order to bring money home to their loved ones.

"Street vendors have been asking for licenses for many years and haven't received them," said Miguel Lázaro, a street vendor who sells churros (fried dough). He started working in Manhattan because the situation in the Bronx was untenable. Lázaro, who is 63, says that he makes a better profit and takes less of a risk in the part of Manhattan where he works, as opposed to in the Bronx where he lives and where he is familiar with the stress of comrades who have been fined heavily for operating without a license.