Locals rallied around a Bronx street vendor this weekend days after the NYPD and Department of Sanitation confiscated and threw out the vendor's fresh fruit and produce.
The incident, which was captured in the videos below, shows city officials tossing the food from 36-year-old vendor Diana Hernandez Cruz in a garbage truck at the corner of White Plains Road and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx on September 23rd. Hernandez Cruz was approached by the NYPD and representatives of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), who went to issue her a violation for vending without a license. (DCWP claims she left the stand before getting the violation, while Hernandez Cruz says she stuck around, as seen in some of the videos.)
The NYPD then called in the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to dispose of the food. According to Local Law 171 of 2017, there should be a good faith attempt by officials to donate confiscated food, but it notes that a Department of Health representative has to be on hand to certify that the food is safe.
An official at one of the involved agencies said the "chain of custody of the food could not be verified" which led to the food being thrown in the back of a garbage truck.
But midway through throwing out the food, DSNY and NYPD ended up abandoning that plan and leaving the area under pressure from locals.
"Due to community backlash in support of Diana as DSNY/NYPD were throwing away palettes of watermelons, papayas and other fruits, the enforcement agents eventually were pressured to leave," Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director of Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, told Gothamist. "In gratitude to the community members who stood by her, Diana decided to give away the remaining fruits and vegetables to her neighbors. Even as the DSNY was throwing out the fruits, Diana was advocating for it to at least be distributed to the community, rather than thrown away."
Joshua Goodman, a spokesperson for DSNY, told Gothamist the video "shows a small portion of an unfortunate situation, where abandoned material needed to be disposed of for the safety of the community. The Department of Sanitation is committed to our mission of keeping streets and neighborhoods safe, clean, and healthy.”
A DCWP spokesperson acknowledged that between the three agencies, a mistake had been made in handling the situation.
"The results of this multi-agency vending enforcement are not in line with the City’s policies," said DCWP spokesperson Abigail Lootens. "DCWP and its sister agencies who assist with confiscations when necessary will work together to ensure this type of wastefulness does not happen again."
On Sunday, there was a rally held in the Bronx on behalf of Hernandez Cruz, protesting both the food waste and unfair treatment of what they call a neighborhood small business.
"I have been working here for five years in the heat, in the snow, to support my children. I am a single mother. I was very indignant the day that the Department of Sanitation threw out pallets of fruits and vegetables from my stand, it was very unfair," Hernandez Cruz, through a translator, said at the rally. "I was here present, I told them not to throw the food away, but they did it anyways."
People rallying in the Bronx on Sunday
Street Vendor Project noted that due to decades-old cap on the number of licenses and permits issued to vendors, it is "nearly impossible to enter the industry legally, effectively criminalizing thousands of small business-people including Diana who must operate without a permit, though not for lack of trying." They say that Hernandez Cruz had previously tried to apply for a mobile food vendor permit, but was denied.
The city has limited the number of vending licenses to 853 and the waiting list to apply for a permit is currently closed.
Mohamed Attia, managing director of the Street Vendor Project, is calling on officials to pass the Street Vendor Legalization Act that would help ease the barrier to entry to the industry.
"What happened on Thursday is an example of city failure on several levels. The city has failed street vendors for decades and is still failing them till this moment,” said Attia. “As the city is recovering from the pandemic, we should take serious steps towards helping our smallest businesses instead of criminalizing them and confiscating their merchandise."
Earlier this year, the City Council passed a bill that calls for approximately 4,000 additional permits to be issued in batches of about 400 over the next decade, starting in 2022.
During his morning press conference today Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed his disappointment with how the situation with Hernandez Cruz was handled, describing it "absolutely horrible" that food was thrown out, while not directly calling out any of the specific agencies involved for their actions.
"That was precisely the wrong way [to handle this], I'm really sad about this," de Blasio said. "This shouldn't have happened, I don't blame any one person or agency, I think this is a classic thing of bureaucracies not communicating and not using common sense. We got a lot of good quality food, let's get it to a homeless shelter or food pantry, some place where it can be used. Of course we should never throw it out."
