nosh nook #34 - thursday, april 30, 2009

street vending as a way to ease joblessness (link)
04.29.09 - the ny times - by jennifer 8. lee

we sure do have a pretty impressive level of unemployment these days, huh? luckily, president obama is totally stimulating the economy. go economy go! with all that stimulus action going on, you figure that if you were unemployed & came up with a non-narcotic related plan to make some money & avoid homelessness & hunger & whatnot, surely the government wouldn't prevent you from putting that plan into action, especially if it resulted in the tingling of people's taste buds, right?

not so in the nyc, reports the interestingly-named jennifer 8. lee (who coined the term "man date"). here in new york, just like the limit on the number of taxi medallions given out, there's a cap on the number of permits given out to street vendors & that number maxed out years ago. as a result, even if somebody wants to set up a street cart & bring some money in by providing us with tasty fruits or hot nuts or kebabs or such snacks, they can't...there aren't any permits left for them.

luckily, there's talk of upping the cap from 4,000 permits to 25,000 but until then, there's the black market. lee spoke with michael wells, the co-director of the street vendor project & he said that a black market permits will run you $8-12K & then, of course, you're breaking the law. his organization estimates that "about two-thirds of permits are not even used by the original owner. in addition, thousands of people sell on the street without permits."

the way i see it, we repealed the draconian rockefeller drug laws here in new york recently.  that means there are going to be crazed marijuana users out on the streets & they're going to want snacks & want them in wide variety & if access to them means the difference between putting food on a prospective vendor's table or not, the guv'ment needs to chill out...as long as they keep the vendors from getting all out of control & blocking the sidewalk with their wares & totally fucking up my flow.