Unlicensed vendors at Grand Army Plaza lament holiday crackdown

A crackdown on unlicensed vendors near the popular Grand Army Plaza greenmarket has driven away some of the entrepreneurs during the holiday rush.

“This is honestly the worst time to do it,” said Cynthia Blade, an unlicensed vendor who has sold handmade and vintage jewelry at the park and other outdoor markets for years.

“They’re shutting us down at the height of the holiday season,” she said. “I would say, not even joking, 80% to 90% of my annual income comes from the holiday season.” She’s decided to stop selling at Prospect Park for now because she’s worried about getting in trouble.

During a visit to Grand Army Plaza last Saturday, a Gothamist reporter witnessed Parks Enforcement Patrol officers visiting some unlicensed vendors by the greenmarket. Officers told a man and woman selling tamales to leave the park. The couple moved to a nearby traffic median in the middle of Flatbush Avenue to sell their tamales, next to a man selling weed cookies.

Parks department officers have been issuing warnings to the unlicensed vendors in recent weeks in response to complaints, an agency spokesperson said. A similar sweep is underway on the Brooklyn Bridge, where the city seeks to ban both licensed and unlicensed vendors. Between April and November, the city issued 240 violations on the Brooklyn Bridge, mostly for unlicensed vending, to clear the way for pedestrians, Gothamist previously reported.

As a result of the crackdown that began around October, several unlicensed vendors selling candles, herbal teas and handwoven bags have left Grand Army Plaza and set up in front of the Brooklyn Central Library across the street. The parks department did not respond to a request for enforcement data regarding unlicensed vendors at Grand Army Plaza.

The enforcement sweep escalated on Nov. 27 when parks police forcefully handcuffed a vendor who had a tablecloth reading “Trippy Gawdz” after he refused to show them his identification. Parks officers confiscated his bong, mushroom statue, and other paraphernalia – as well as the vendor’s cat, which was sitting in a carrier on his table.

The vendor, later identified as Jeremy Wrenn, was issued citations for unlicensed vending and soliciting and eventually reunited with his cat, Nala.

Last weekend, Wrenn and Nala were back at Grand Army Plaza. He sat at his Trippy Gawdz table, taunting a group of officers standing nearby. He insisted the parks police were not “real” police officers with the authority to make arrests.

“You're not a law enforcement agency. You don't do investigations. You don't gather evidence,” Wrenn yelled at them.

“I want to see them act like they did last week. I want to see the mobilization,” he said.

After the officers moved on, Wrenn displayed his merchandise – weed edibles – on the table for sale.

The rules around selling goods in the park are complicated. The greenmarket, which is run by GrowNYC, is only open to food-related vendors who applied to sell local produce and other agricultural goods. Marijuana products are not allowed to be sold in parks. The city allows for the sale of “expressive matter,” but vendors face guidelines on the amount of space they can use and types of material that can be sold.

“It is incredibly complicated. It's more inaccessible than not,” said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director of the Street Vendor Project. “It's very much these layers of red tape that make it incredibly complicated just for an average vendor to operate.”

Unlicensed vendor Axel Avin Jr. said the officers asked him about the clothes he was selling. His Black Lives Matter sweatshirts were permitted under the Expressive Matter exception, but the officers questioned whether the LOVE and Brooklyn sweatshirts were allowed.

“I told them, ‘you know this is political for me because it's a response to the hate that [the officers are] putting out in the world,’” Avin said. The officers left without removing the sweatshirts.

Jason Shelton, a licensed vendor who has sold meat at the greenmarket for six years, said “the show of force” distressed him.

“Every once in a while the parks department will come and clear these people out. But I've never seen them come out in this much force,” Shelton said. “And it's intimidation against street vendors in the middle of the holiday season, when people are just out here. There's never been issues otherwise with space or with disruption from these particular vendors. I'm not sure what the point is.”

Another vendor said this autumn's rainy weather has added urgency to holiday sales.

“It's been raining every weekend for September and most of October,” said unlicensed vendor Eldad Arad, who sells figurines made of foraged natural materials. “So the vendors that do this full time, they’re really hurting… The elements haven't been good to us.”

But Nan Smith, who sells potato vodka at the greenmarket, pointed out that licensed vendors like her pay fees to operate at the Grand Army Plaza market. “This is a wonderful, wonderful location. So I think it's important that people get their licenses. But that's not for us to monitor. And I don't think it detracts. However, it should be legal – we paid to be here and they’re not,” Smith said.

Shopper Beatrice Johnson said the unlicensed vendors were a welcome addition to the park – and added that she was a personal fan of some of their wares.

“There's places selling edibles and pot everywhere – there's actual brick-and-mortar stores doing it,” Johnson said. “So I don't see why a stand would be any different or certainly problematic in any way… And also they have great weed.”