Street Vendors Rally: Hundreds gather at NYC’s City Hall calling for new bill to ease licensing process for street vendors [Video]

LOWER MANHATTAN (WABC) — Hundreds of street vendors rallied at City Hall on Thursday for a new set of bills to make it easier for people to obtain a license to become a legal vendor.

The “Street Vendor Reform Platform” is a package of bills designed to provide a regulated, predictable, enforceable system for New York’s smallest businesses.

The four main pieces of the legislation are: ensuring vendor access to business licensing, reducing criminal liability for general and mobile food vendors, creating a division of street vendor assistance within NYC small business services, and reforming public siting.

Back in 2021, City Council passed Local Law 18 to introduce over 4,450 new mobile food vendor permits — now called supervisory permits — over a ten-year period.

As of May 2024, only 127 of the 890 new supervisory permits have been received, even as enforcement against vendors has increased city wide.

There are nearly 20,000 street …