new york
06
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2012
Street vendors sue city and police after raid Plainclothes police officers confiscate goods for sale in the middle of bustling SoHo shopping district Eventually returned wares back to street vendors, but many items broken, including earrings, sunglasses Now the vendors want to be compensated for damages, lost income Five street vendors announced yesterday they are suing the NYPD and the city after they claim their goods and wares were illegally seized in a sweep of lower Broadway by uniformed and plainclothes police officers. The May 17 raid occurred on the west side of Broadway between Prince and Broome streets, said Matt Shapiro, an attorney with the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project, who is representing the five vendors. Abibou Gueye, a licensed vendor who sells jewelry,
What say retail store employees? Employees at some stores in the area don’t take issue with the vendors. “They’re not even near our door, and they don’t sell goods that compete with ours,” said a manager of one store on Broadway.
sunglasses and bags on Broadway between Spring and Broome, said he has been there in his “legal spot” for ten years, and this is the first time anything like this has happened. “They’re allowed to give tickets, but not take your stuff,” Gueye said. The police are authorized to seize goods in the event that someone is vending without a license or on a restricted street, explained Shapiro. But the tickets the cops distributed on May 17 cite different violations, including being less than 20 feet from a build-
ing entrance. All of the vendors ticketed were licensed and, in the case of food vendors, had the necessary permits as well, Shapiro said. “The police came and said, ‘Give me your license,’” Gueye recalled. “Half an hour later I went and said, ‘Can you give me back my license?’ They said, ‘No, you have to close.’” Eventually the police did return Gueye’s license, but they also gave him a ticket and informed him they were taking his items into custody. Gueye was able to recover his things the following day, as
DANIELLE TCHOLAKIAN
A street vendor showcases his wares this week on Broadway in SoHo.
Complaints from SoHo residents Shapiro said he thinks the raid came about as the result of complaints registered at community board meetings by residents on Broadway. Shapiro recalled that some residents complained about crowding and the amount of vendors.
were most of the vendors, but not in the same condition he’d left them. “A lot of the earrings were broken when I got them back, [and] the sunglasses, too,” he said. He doesn’t think the goods were damaged out of any malicious intent, but “they’re just very fragile,” he said. Now the five vendors are seeking monetary damages for violations of constitutional rights, lost income, and property damage. DANIELLE TCHOLAKIAN letters@metro.us
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