Live crabs. Bras with rhinestones. Old shoes. Worn out electrical wires. Louis Vuitton Knock-off clutches. Disposable masks. Mets caps.
Illegal street vendors who advertise these items have occupied the outer neighborhoods, clogging the sidewalks with their second-hand products and pulling customers from family stores devastated by the pandemic.
And everyone is pointing a finger at the Mayor of Blasio.
From Brooklyn to the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens, folding tables and mats stretched out on the ground force pedestrians to walk single file or walk away so they won’t be run over.
In the Bronx, 149º Street and Fordham Road are important points. Just like Fifth Avenue in Sunset Park in Brooklyn and Flushing’s Main Street, especially the few blocks from the Post Office on Sanford Avenue to train station 7 on Roosevelt Avenue.
On Main, between Sanford and 41st Avenue, The Post counted 27 street vendors – on just one side of the street. Two took yellow licenses, showing that they are military veterans. Six shook their heads as if they didn’t understand English. The others turned or looked down when asked to show their licenses.
DianSong Yu, of the Flushing Business Improvement District, estimates that 90% of suppliers are unlicensed. Across the city, the number of all types of salespeople stands at around 20,000, according to the Street Vendor Project, an advocacy group. But holders of legitimate licenses for general goods, not including mobile food vendors, number a few thousand.
“It is a very difficult time for everyone, we understand,” Yu told The Post. “But we need to be fair to the local merchant who is paying very high rents and taxes. And they are suffering. “
Bobby has a yellow license for his place on Main – and he’s crazy about the infiltrators. “They are stealing city taxes. They are taking money from the veterans. They are taking jobs, ”said Bobby, who declined to reveal his surname, but told the Post that he fought in Vietnam.
Licenses are distributed by the Department of Consumer Protection. The city limits licenses to general non-veteran vendors at 853 and charges a fee of $ 100 or $ 200, depending on the time of year the candidate applies. Any honorably discharged veteran can obtain a license for free.
Sanford and Main is where you can find live blue crabs. Street vendors stack their three-bushel wooden bushels, selling the crustaceans for a dollar each.
Whether crabs are legal or safe to eat, no one knows. No agency could tell the Post for sure and none took responsibility for oversight.
The state of New York allows crab fishing in the waters around Queens, but has restrictions on the size and number of catches. Issues licenses for major transportation.
But the regulatory agency, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, does not require a retail license to sell the crabs. The city’s Department of Health licenses street food vendors, who cannot sell raw seafood, but do not monitor street vendors.
A licensed vendor’s wife bought a dozen several weeks ago, despite objections from her husband, who did not work during the pandemic because of a chronic lung disease.
“She found out what could go wrong … well, quite a lot,” said the husband who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity.
That night, she nibbled on crab legs. Not long after, she started to feel bad and her husband decided to dissect the leftovers in search of clues. He found white worms in the bellies. The Health Department is investigating, spokesman Patrick Gallahue told the Post.
“I was an illegal seller,” confessed her husband, now in his 70s. “I can understand if you go out and sell. Why not? But the situation is out of control – outrageously out of control. “
At 39º and principal, Ira Dananberg looks at the crowd of people from his second-floor hearing aid business, Acousticon of Flushing.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dananberg, who has been at his location for 19 years. “People literally have no choice but to walk on top of each other.”
He worries because most of his customers are older and use a cane or a walker. And they are intimidated by the crowd.
From January to December 21, complaints from illegal street vendors in the five neighborhoods totaled 2,907 – despite the city being closed for 78 days. The number of 2019: 3,101.
During the first nine months of 2020, the NYPD issued 28 tickets to unlicensed suppliers. Last year’s count was 173.
Dananberg, Bobby and several others blame Blasio, who ordered the NYPD to stop cracking down on illegal street vendors in early June – part of a package of political changes he announced after more than a week of violent Black Lives Matter protests.
“It’s a circus,” said city councilor Peter Koo, who introduced a bill passed two years ago that bans all sales – even food carts – on the main street. “It falls directly on the mayor.”
Dananberg filed a pair of 311 complaints online, which were referred to NYPD 109º Police station The police officers who responded told Dananberg that his hands were tied because of Hizzoner’s moratorium.
Det. NYPD spokeswoman Sophia Mason told The Post that the police are still handling supplier complaints.
But oversight will shift from NYPD to Consumer Affairs on Jan. 15, de Blasio’s spokeswoman, Laura Feyer, told the Post.
“We remain committed to a diverse commercial ecosystem, where small businesses of all types coexist and contribute to vibrant street life,” she said.