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Anti-Giuliani Vendor Demo 2/10/99 City Hall 12 noon
2/3/99 Update: Giuliani’s War On Vendors
[Three significant upcoming dates to note in the vending issue]
1. Wednesday, Feb. 10th there will be a major demonstration by street artists,
food vendors, book vendors, veteran vendors and general vendors to protest the
closing of more than 100 new streets to all forms of vending as ordered by Mayor
Giuliani’s Street Vendor Review Panel [see NY Times January 23, 1999 ”Compromise
Plan on Vendors Is Approved”]. Time: 12 noon. Place: City Hall (the Broadway
side). We welcome cabbies, CUNY students, WEP workers, unionists, community
gardeners, vendor customers and anyone else that is tired of being abused by
Giuliani’s police state to join us and be heard. These street closings are about
corruption not congestion. Every street being closed is within one of the City’s
Business Improvement Districts. No objective criteria (unless political contributions
and lobbying fees qualify as “criteria”) were ever used in determining which
streets to close.
2. Also on Feb. 10th the City Council is expected to release the final draft
of its new vending law, Int. #110 [available on the web at http://leah.council.nyc.ny.us/leg98/int0110.htm].
This new law was written by the City’s most politically connected Business Improvement
Districts (BIDs) working with attorneys from the City Council. While the Council
Members sponsoring this bill claim it is intended to resolve the vending issue
“fairly”, Int #110’s sole purpose is to destroy today’s vendors and turn over
vending to corporate interests [key architects of the bill are Council Members
Freed, Fisher and Dear and the Downtown Alliance’s Director Carl Weisbrod].
Their latest tool for getting rid of vendors is the warrant system, a new requirement
which will result in a fiercely competitive bidding system for vending spots,
as is now done in all N.Y.C. parks. To get an idea of the ramifications of the
warrant system, the 1/25/99 City Record announced a successful bid for one tee
shirt vending stand in Battery Park. The winning bid? $525,000. The food carts
in front of the Met are now bid out at over $400,000. Disney, McDonalds and
the BIDs have been lobbying to get control of vending and to use it as a form
of advertising. ABCTV already has ads on numerous food vending carts in the
Downtown and Midtown areas. Once this system is in place none of today’s vendors
can hope to sucessfully compete in the bidding for these locations.
3. On Wed. Feb. 24th the City Council will hold a public hearing on the vending
issue and on Int. #110. Advocates from various aspects of vending will testify
as will BID representatives and members of the Giuliani administration.
Vending is a time-honored form of legitimate business that has existed in New
York City since the 1600’s and continues throughout most of the world. In fact,
vending is the original form of business. Most commercial strips in cities developed
where vendors congregated, including Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. According to
the Fifth Avenue BID’s director of public safety Robert Loutitt, Fifth Avenue
was originally known as “Peddler’s Row.” Throughout New York City history vending
has provided an entry to the American dream. Many middle class and wealthy New
Yorkers were sent to college by immigrant parents who earned their living as
street vendors. Among the city’s earliest vendors were escaped slaves and free
African Americans. As new waves of immigrants came to New York City they established
themselves by vending. Germans, Eastern European Jews, Italians, Greeks, Koreans,
Caribbean-Americans, Russians, Senegalese, Chinese and many other ethnic groups
renowned for their business success started as vendors.
Since the 1934-1945 administration of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (Mayor Giuliani’s
idol) there has been a constant war on vendors sponsored by large corporations
and real estate interests. They call vendors parasites, unhygienic, criminal
and unsightly. Using us as scapegoats for every concievable social ill they
routinely blame us for petty crime, drug dealing, prostitution and even their
own business failures. They falsely claim we congest streets, threaten public
safety and make people sick from our food products. Yet, the facts are quite
different. Newspaper articles in the Times, Post, Daily News and Newsday during
the past year make it clear that the BID members’ own corporate chain stores,
giant office buildings, restaurants, theaters and corporate promotions like
the Macy’s parade and the Times’ Sq. BIDs New Years party (not to mention the
Mayor’s numerous ego-inflating parades) are themselves the City’s largest cause
of congestion. Goldman Sachs free limo parking strip along Front, Wall, Water
and Pearl Sts (also courtesy of Mayor Giuliani) causes more congestion than
all of the City’s vendors combined. Expensive restaurants within the BIDs, not
vendors, are the primary cause of food related illness in New York.
The Mayor’s efforts to eliminate vendors can not even charitably be described
as a misguided effort to satisfy New Yorker’s quality of life demands. During
the massive vendor protest held last June a number of polls were taken of local
residents, storeowners and workers by the City’s daily papers. The vast majority
of New Yorkers said they wanted the vendors to remain. We intend to do exactly
that.
When covering this issue we hope journalists can overcome pressure by the BIDs
and get the story right. There has been a tremendous amount of disinformation
given out by the BIDs, the Street Vendor Review Panel and Mayor Giuliani on
this issue.
1. There's no compromise in the works nor has there ever been.
2. There have been no “negotiations” by the City with any legitimate representatives
of actual vendors.
3. The warrant system that's being proposed is not meant to, "help vendors find
a spot" but is intended to eliminate them and replace them with corporate vendors
(Disney, McDonalds etc. and advertising).
4. Vending interests on all sides understand that the outcome of this issue
is now very much a matter of artists and book vendors bringing a lawsuit and
getting an injunction to stop the Mayor and the BIDs based on the street restrictions
and warrant system being a violation of First Amendment freedom. We are in discussions
with the NYCLU on this very matter.
We look forward to holding a peaceful and successful demonstration on Wednesday
2/10/99 and on seeing vending continue in New York City for many years to come.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
(718) 369-2111 e mail ARTISTpres@aol.com
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
(an extensive source of info on this issue).
Other contact numbers Dan Rossi, 212 459-9483, Jeff Ciscio 212 957-4691 Big
Apple Food Vendors
Dimitri; Food vendor advocate 718 626-3572
Jim Kushner Disabled Veteran Vendors 212 569-3542
Thomas Dukleth FABA (First Amendment Bookvendors Assoc.)
(w) 212 787-3914 (h) 212 674-3783 beeper 1 917 894-5080
PLEASE COPY THIS AND GIVE IT TO EVERY VENDOR YOU KNOW
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