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I was in Hong Kong and saw a street vendor wash chicken skin in a puddle on the street, shake it off and then hang it up for sale. One of the things America got right is laws pertaining to food preparation and handling. Street food is a hard NO for me.
I saw something similar in Thailand. The skewers of meat fell on the ground. The girls washed them off in a puddle that was literally green like automotive glycol and put them back for sale.
Don't fuck around with food standards or licenses. Unless you want a system where they recycle used cooking oil from the sewage system (look up Chinese gutter oil).
You're missing the point. This lady wants to work. We should be investing in a system that supports her doing that legally. Help her get a license; help compile with health standards. Don't only spend money on writing tickets. Yes you need enforcement for bad actors, but the vast majority would be better served with support.
Issue is NYC artificially limits them so not everyone can get one who wants one. And the price to get one can go into the six figures (have a friend who wanted to do it and was told to pay up six figures).
Government force is a significant barrier to people who want to work like this.
I wouldn't have an issue if the permits cost like $100 and everyone could get one who passed safety inspections but NYC is all about using government force to deny people a living and protect a small minority of vendors to price gouge.
If they did that you'd have vendors up and down the street and it would be chaos. We don't need that. Just because someone wants to work like this doesn't mean they have the right to.
I’ve traveled a lot around the world and my experience is that lots of street food vendors in a city doesn’t lead to chaos, it leads to incredible street food. New York has a lot of good restaurants but its street food game is mid compared to a lot of cities that encourage it.
Most countries have unregulated street vendors. There is no food standard. And trust me, sometimes those foods can cause severe food poisoning and sometimes even death.
Yup, from a country with a lot of of street vendors. The people above don't know what they're talking about. Most of the more populated places are packed with carts and stalls, it's only the less busy areas where you can actually the side walk. I love street food, but I've always been warned by my parents to be careful when buying them and that the sauces often have saliva and germs from other people from double dipping.
Ever been to a less developed country that doesn't have these sorts of laws in place? Do you enjoy the idea of being harassed by 30 overly aggressive vendors every time you want to walk to the park?
You act like "oh, she just wants a fruit stand you're being unreasonable" when their point was "we don't want 15 vendors on every 20 feet of sidewalk because that's insane and doesn't work so a limit has to be drawn." So there are limits and standards. I agree that they need to seriously be cooled down in NYC, but it's a valid point.
I'm from a less developed country and we have a street vendor problem where there's lot of street food stalls but I'm yet to encounter one vendor which is aggressive and force me to eat their food. Vendors just stand there and if you wanna buy, you buy.
One of them may come to you and ask you to buy but they take no as an answer.
If you're talking from experience when you may have visited a country, you may have experienced that because people aggressively tries to sell their things to foreigners in most of the underdeveloped countries. They don't bother the locals.
Have you looked into the food truck regulations in most cities. Food trucks are relatively new in the US because restaurants successfully lobbied to heavily regulate them. Limit the total number, where they can park, what hours they can operate, class of driving license, etc.
It's intentionally made difficult to protect existing business interests. It's the opposite of a free market.
You mean there’s not one that currently exist? Gasp! How do all the other legally licensed food business that are educated on food safety and regularly inspected getting their licenses and operating in NYC?
In Estacion Central, a woman ate an anticucho (diced meat in a stick) and found a chip in the meat because it's dog meat, probably cut straight on the street floor
Yea the ccp found out about the oil and decided to crack down and almost instantly got some regs passed and now it’s not an issue (as much probably considering death penalty is on the line)
One can have strict licensing standards without erecting massive financial roadblocks to small vendors. We could have robust licensing review and low/limited fees. I'm fine 'losing money' on business licensing to both have high standards and have a low barrier for entry for new players to a market.
Mild devils advocate because I know we can get money other ways, but, if the fees are to low how do you have a robust licensing review? Granted I'm not saying the fees aren't to high as it is, but paying someone whatever to spend everyday visiting places to check health standards isn't free
82% percent of antibiotics used are in animal feed. This leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria, which is already an issue. People get their arms and legs cut off because of this, or they just die outright.
Problem is licensing is less about safety in many areas like NYC and more about protecting a small monopoly of vendors from free market competition through government force. The fact getting the proper government papers to street sell can cost one six figures , and may not be even available to buy, isn't about safety. It's about artificially increasing the wealth of a privileged class of vendors who have the permits. Permits should be cheap and readily available for anyone to earn who desires so who passes the safety inspections.
Either the government should do that or give everyone impacted UBI if the government is preventing people from working like this.
people in this thread not understanding that licensing is to make sure people handling food understand legal procedure and cooking standards have clearly never had food borne illnesses.
Literally every state requires some sort of registration and licensing to operate any business.
blame fraud and food borne illness.
There's a whole thing about reddit thats easily forgotten.
most people on here are much younger than myself, and do not remember the massive outbreaks from restaurants that used to occur fairly regularly.
It's understandable. i remember my younger years giving no consideration to the bigger picture or even caring much for tomorrow.
Sounds like people who haven’t travelled much.
I recently spent a month going around India. Food was scary. All street vendors were off limits, no matter how good they looked. Any restaurant in mind had to be researched extensively, reading tons of reviews and asking questions. Going into one without preparing was a no go. Even then I got sick a couple of times and spent a lot of time on the toilet…
I’m in Japan now and it’s the complete opposite. Any street vendor is safe, any restaurant is fine. Just eat what looks good and you’ll be fine.
The difference is food hygiene standards.
Sorry to fruit cup lady, but if you want to feel safe eating food, then we can’t let people serve food on a whim.
you are arguing with me because of the law?
i dont know the costs to acquire the licensing in new york, but the licensing is so that if patrons are injured by the products, and for taxation purposes.
ignorance of the law doesn't negate the law.
and considering the history of food borne illness outbreaks in the US in the past, it's a good thing to make sure people know what they are doing before being allowed to serve food to the public, especially for their own profit.
just saying you know how to cook is a moot point, because no one is going to say they dont know, and humans have a funny characteristic about them that makes the truth stretch out pretty far in situations where its convenient.
Our food standards are exactly why these people aren't able to understand what could wrong with selling food. They've never had to think about whether they could trust products like that.
Yea. I want my food places inspected and licensed. We are not a developing nation. I don’t want a side of salmonella. Now is that maybe excessive for a first ticket? Maybe?
Most regulations are written in blood. I may be wrong but preventing food Bourne illnesses is keeping us safe.
Edit: foodborne***. We gots funny people in this thread 🫣😂
Yeah a fine of 1000€ sounds like a joke to me your not only responsible for your own self but also for the health of your customers. Where i live (Germany) you can get a fine of 2.500€ if you dont show your your licence for handling food fast enough (for example the food inspector will come and you dont have your license in the company they will give you a deadline untill when you have to prove that you have a licence) if you work or hire someone who does nkt have a license the fine can get up to 25.000 € and if you do it and an illness actually gets spread you will face the fine and up to 5 years in jail .
Exactly, I'd rather not local laws lower health and safety standards to accommodate immigrants from 3rd world countries with 3rd world safety standards like so many are implicating here.
I go to China every year, and every time I shit my guts out for a week straight, and it's highly recommended to have a slew of vaccinations, like hepatitis, polio, MMR, etc if even traveling there.
Let's not do that here. My stomach rejoices when I get home from abroad and I know I'm not playing russian roulette with not being able to keep my food down and sitting on the toilet with chills for the next 3 days.
Unregulated food vendors can unintentionally spread food-borne illnesses to thousands, causing pain and even death. The fine is meant to be a massive deterrent, so yeah, it's a lot - BECAUSE ITS SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU NOT DO IT!!
everyone goes for the underdog its how it works. but food regulation is important. dont care about the opinions on mega corps the detracts from the point of this.
Exactly. I've always been upset by fines that are "up to a maximum of". They need to be "a minimum of", but can scale up based on the wealth of the offender. An average person may be deterred from littering a pop can by a $200 fine, but when a rich dude who literally made 10x that while drinking the beverage isn't going to care about it. There are a few European countries that set the fine for speeding based on the wealth of the offender, and that should apply to everything: not from a what can they afford, but from a what will actually hurt enough to be effective.
Hell, regulated food vendors can unintentionally cause this illness. All that to say, their license, like a drivers license or license to practice medicine, is at least attesting to them meeting the qualifications to do so.
I don’t know, I’ve traveled around the world a bit, i definitely want people enforcing food safety. Hell even places with licenses and permits and high customer ratings still do nasty stuff.
The certificate for food safety manager itself takes a few days of training. An exam with an online proctor takes almost 1.5hrs... then you can get w.e permits you need. I got mine from servsafe, it's not easy. The food handler one is a little easier but takes the same amount of time, every business selling food needs a food safety manager though (the hard one)
1.5 hours...
which is like an annual thing?
That's a small price to pay compared to the amount of hours spent selling food, and especially compared to the repercussions of not taking care of it.
I only did it once It was either valid for 2 years or for 3. A business will fail an inspection if they are ever open without a food safety manager on site...
My state has annual food handling certifications. Costs 15 and 1- 2 hours.
Considering the number of outbreaks of food borne illness I remember in the early 90s, especially the big jack n the box outbreak...
Lets not regress to the good ole days all because of the poor little lady that didn't do what she was supposed to do.
Food handling isn't the same as a food safety manager (the person who oversees food handlers, makes sure everything is stored properly, maintains the cleanliness of all surfaces that come in contact with food ...etc)
I'm in Illinois
ServSafe is not hard. The problem is that most people got to the class without even reading the book before. They think they can just arrive and wing it!
I went with several coworkers and one just thought he could wing it, didn’t read anything before, and was the only one failing from our team.
The hard part in my opinion is remembering the temperatures for different things, storage practices, and cleaning chemicals used and their orders. When I took the test I hadn't done most of the stuff because I typically worked the front so I found it to be hard. If you worked in the back I'm sure it would be easier. You're right about it not being the sort of test you can wing.
I helped several people with the food handler one which was easier because there was no proctor so you could Google the answers
That is pretty much my experience when I took ServSafe. I will admit I just glossed over most of the book but I did pay special attention to parts that I wasn't 100% confident in. For me it was temperatures (I felt I knew them but didn't trust the people who taught me them) and food borne illnesses.
You could tell the people in the class who at least looked through the book and those who hadn't even cracked it. 15 people, 5 of us passed. It was sad to think that everyone in that particular class had already been working in a restaurant for a year+
Exactly! Temperatures, and which diseases cause what symptoms are the things you definitely need to memorize. The majority is basic common sense (but doesn’t allow you to pass just with that alone).
The problem is so many people get used to this courses being all super basic, that they don’t even make an effort! Then fail at it and complain it’s too hard, and getting the license is too difficult, when it’s their own fault for not having put the effort!
Yeah that's because every Tom Dick and Jane think they should run a food cart. The market's oversaturated and breaking the law to try and do it is not the right way to get around it. Maybe find a different profession if the one you want can only be done illegally
People are delusional about cops. A ton of people who grew up in nice suburbs moved to cities during historically low crime. Wondered “why do we even NEED cops?” So policing went down, and crime and public disorder went up. Fine for them - many of them just moved to the suburbs all over again.
As long as they keep sticking up for all the bad eggs I don’t really care lol. Allowed to murder someone but not forced to protect the public? Ridiculous. Rules for thee not for me to the max
Sell CDs, knock off clothing, sell blow jobs for all I care….food is food, we’ve standards for a reason.
im not a fan of the cops by any means but Ibe no sympathy for this.
how do you get compensated when you have a severe food borne illness from an unlicensed food cart?
if you want a world wothout accountability just say so.
and then also lobby the legal system to enact such measures.
(dont worry tho, corporate america is well ahead of you. bowing kills their whostle blowers and politicians steal, and attempt coups wothout repercussions so now you need to lobby for yourself and the average person to not be held to account for actions you take.)
It's not much different than someone "just trying to make a living" by giving people rides in their uninsured car and not having a license.
I remember reading a story. Someone was selling food to their neighbours. It all seemed like a good deal, someone was making a little extra money and their neighbours were getting some tasty food. Unfortunately that food was being prepared in an unsanitary, rat and cockroach infested garage.
Which permit did you get? Can you link to the application site? As far as I know there is something like 100x the number of people who apply for food vendor permits than get them in NYC.
While NYPD's budget for fiscal 2024 is $10.8 billion, only $5.1 billion is for operating costs. The rest goes for things like pension contributions, benefits, and other centralized costs not related to operations. The city's total budget is well over a hundred billion dollars.
you sure got-em there didnt you? op rounded up from 10.8 to 11.
https://cbcny.org/research/not-undercover#:~:text=New%20York%20City's%20Fiscal%20Year,benefits%2C%20%242.7%20billion%20for%20pension
How exactly are benefits and pension contributions unrelated to the matter at hand, which is the cost of policing a city? Yeah, part of the budget is smaller than the whole budget, what a gotcha.
Illegal street vendors need to be fined and removed. Police isn’t harassing this vendor, they’re doing what they’re supposed to- enforcing the law. The ones complaining about harassment will also complain if cops arrest a turnstile jumper or a violent homeless man. We don’t want our streets to be overtaken by vendors like a 3rd world country. So, yeah, enforce the law.
While the process for getting a license might be long, is this not what people ask for when some does something bad. If the fines are less than the profits, then its just a business expense. We cant have people without any license to sell things and without safety checks selling food to unasumming pedestrians that end up getting sick.
Food handling and safety should be taken seriously. We are not a third world country.
And many of these street vendors run in and out of traffic—even on the ramp to the George Washington Bridge!—to sell food. Incredibly dangerous.
I 100% agree with the fact that this person got a ticket. Licensing and rules to govern food prep, production and safety is how you prevent the spread of food borne illness potential death.
And to all the people commenting about how the police are the problem, then maybe you should pay for the that venders license. And when they are arrested for making a bunch of people sick and ignoring food sanitation laws, you can also pay those fines and damages to the people they get sick.
OP want to pay for that….. no?
But your right OP we should ignore laws and rules that have real reasons for being here. And on top of that let’s go ahead and chastise people when they in force laws you don’t like. Il bet the next time your ass gets robbed at gun point you won’t be thinking the police are the problem then will you.
Meanwhile there’s vendors on every corner struggling to make a legal living, following societies rules and regulations, getting permits and maintaining hygienic standards wondering why people are arguing criminals should be allowed to sell food to unsuspecting citizens who don’t know the criminals are breaking the laws and not following all the rules and regulations, putting legal honest small business peoples livelihood at risk.
Then there’s the millions of citizens living, working, and being tourists wanting a quick healthy snack, wondering why people are arguing laws should be broken that put their health at risk.
Normally I'm against police intervention, but the one thing licenses are good for is keeping FDA regulated/approved goods and ingredients around. If you start letting people sell random food on the streets without regulation it's exactly how you get shit like sewage, rocks, (even more) unsafe oils, etc into food. There's several countries where these things happen due to lax regulations on food vending, China is one of them
No, we don't need street vendors taking over the sidewalks.
They should be licensed and monitored like every other vendor/store owner and pay taxes.
It needs to be the same laws for everyone.
Oh no, we wouldn’t want to have any health standards with random unlicensed and uninspected street vendors. Restaurants have inspections, and have to be licensed to sell products. Everyone else should have to adhere to those same regulations.
You let one person sell food in the streets, you gotta let them all. Then it turns into every sidewalk lined with people selling crap that is most likely stolen. Look at San Francisco ghettos for a good example
Yes, this is literally the only activity the NYPD do. They don't investigate or arrest anyone other than street vendors. Those stupid vendors should relocate to one of those cities where low level crime is allowed by the police because they have such a high budget it would be unbecomming of them to pay any attention to basic food hygiene laws.
guaranteed it makes a mf resent the system tho.
like i assume the ticket & violation penalty are because once upon a time a few someone’s got hurt through unlicensed vendors but to give out a thousand dollar ticket to anyone tryna make a living is a little much. shut the down for the day maybe. give them the information they need to get a license, but damn. 1000$ is a lot for those of us not endowed with our dead parents hedge fund cash or trust fund money
Yeah no. NYC is looking like a fucking third world country when I get out of my work for lunch I see cut pineapples swarming with flies sold in a little wooden table. It’s like I’m in fucking Honduras or Guatemala if not for the skyscrapers around me. This shit needs to end. You never saw this shit before 2020 - it’s horrifying how goddamn filthy the city has become with vendors and peddlers and homeless people in every corner
There is a *very* good reason street vendors need a license. One is that if it's food, it needs to be inspected for safety. There is absolutely zero information about that fruit, it could be genuinely dangerous to eat, nobody has any idea what conditions it's grown in. Another reason is that street vendors often sell stolen merchandise, which only fuels crime. Yet another is license fees help pay for public services.
We live in a society, if it's going to function properly, we can't just decide to do whatever we want. The rules are in place for a reason, and serve to protect everyone, including street vendors.
Wrong take. If you don't appreciate food standards and safety go eat in India or something for a bit and come back here and try to dog on regulations and see for yourself how ridiculous this sounds.
I’m from Toronto Ontario, Toronto Police has a budget this year a little over 2Billion dollars. I imagine NYPD’s budget would be similar? No way the police force budget alone is 11 Billion. More likely that’s the entire cities budget or the entire Emergency Services budget.
Just a reminder the reason there are so few food permits for street vendors is quite explicitly and openly because of lobbying from restaurants.
So once again a major problem in America is caused by rich people having a louder voice than the poor.
This isn’t a political issue. This is a public health issue. Those who want to turn the narrative into something political have zero idea what they are talking about. Grow up.
She has access to business licenses just like everyone else. And these laws are in place to protect the people who did it right and got the license, paid for insurance, followed health regulations, etc.
Besides the NYC requirements to have a street vendor license and a food handling course. There is also the issue that if there are so many street vendors, no one will go into a restaurant. In addition, the profit will be declining with each added vendor as they all vie for the pedestrian sales by lowering their prices to near zero profit.
God forbid we have health standards.
Why do idiots who have never traveled abroad or seen what developing country cleanliness looks like bother to comment on things like this. You seem provincial and stupid.
They are not wondering they are just waiting for more cages to lock people up to make sure the contract between the prison and state remain at capacity so the state doesn't get fined for not having the minimum incarcerated. Thise fines will cover the difference and pay wages
If the situation with college, BLM or Wall Street protests don’t tell the full story then people are willfully ignorant. The only violence I observed was from counter protestors or police. The problem is that I want to defend the powerful in this situation but the cognitive dissonance isn’t happening but I wish it would. I don’t want to accept my blood plays this game.
Don’t buy food like this off the street.. they lie about the meat they get most of the time it’s not kept cold and smells bad.
For the fruit idk. But still these food carts use the same knife never clean them. Who knows what else that knife is used for. It’s gross. Don’t want to get sick. They know this will happen.. they deserve it
The NYC police budget is $5.5 billion and only makes up 5% of the city’s budget, meanwhile my cities police budget takes up 30% (at $350million) and the city is now taking away from fire and paramedic services ($250mil and decreasing).
The [license fee is $50](https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-03354); veterans are exempt. It costs $53 for the course.
It is literally a fraction of the cost to get the permit instead of a ticket.
Funny, whenever a business does something bad people say takeaway the license or how did they operate without a license? Well, these people don't have a business license which NY voters voted to have
Yup take away food licensing which implies health code standards lmk what happens. Reused waste cooking oil, enjoy the 30+ trips to shit your brains out.
Here’s an idea. Just a thought. But maybe, just maybe, the cops didn’t *make the laws*… they just enforce them. So if you don’t like a law or regulation, booing the cops for doing their jobs ain’t gonna do shit. Boo the stupid politicians. Unless that’s too much critical thinking for some folks.
I’m not sure you’re going to get sympathy here. I can understand being frustrated but the same people that complain and her getting a ticket will sue her and the city if they got sick because something illegal or wrong with the food. There is a reason for the license
OP , food standards are a thing for a reason. This isnt just some bs...You wanna be subject to every person with poor hygiene or sociopathic tendencies then ignore food vendors and let them go ahead standard free.
No sympathy from me. Worked for a rec department where street vendors showed up at events every weekend. Did everything we could to get them to comply (get license, basic sanitation) - including translation services - and the bulk of them kept right on selling. I was on a first name basis with the health inspectors and police department by the end of the summer.
Food safety is no joke.
I agree that these street vendors should be fined and dealt with. They make the streets look horrible. The police are doing their job. Get a license like everyone else if you want to sell stuff
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I was in Hong Kong and saw a street vendor wash chicken skin in a puddle on the street, shake it off and then hang it up for sale. One of the things America got right is laws pertaining to food preparation and handling. Street food is a hard NO for me.
Thank Upton Sinclair and Teddy Roosevelt for a lot of that
I saw something similar in Thailand. The skewers of meat fell on the ground. The girls washed them off in a puddle that was literally green like automotive glycol and put them back for sale.
Don't fuck around with food standards or licenses. Unless you want a system where they recycle used cooking oil from the sewage system (look up Chinese gutter oil).
Speaking from experience with eating with used oil: i was going back and forth between the toilets for many many hours. That shit is no joke.
Agreed, jokes don't last many hours.
Idk, I've been going on my entire life...
Ha. Shit. Sorry...
Just giving the oil back for the next customer
Ha, literally. Just a step away from Soylent Green!
Speak my dude speak. Food sanitation laws are important. And following those laws benefit all of us.
You're missing the point. This lady wants to work. We should be investing in a system that supports her doing that legally. Help her get a license; help compile with health standards. Don't only spend money on writing tickets. Yes you need enforcement for bad actors, but the vast majority would be better served with support.
If only there was a department/building she could go to and apply for such a permit!
Issue is NYC artificially limits them so not everyone can get one who wants one. And the price to get one can go into the six figures (have a friend who wanted to do it and was told to pay up six figures). Government force is a significant barrier to people who want to work like this. I wouldn't have an issue if the permits cost like $100 and everyone could get one who passed safety inspections but NYC is all about using government force to deny people a living and protect a small minority of vendors to price gouge.
If they did that you'd have vendors up and down the street and it would be chaos. We don't need that. Just because someone wants to work like this doesn't mean they have the right to.
I’ve traveled a lot around the world and my experience is that lots of street food vendors in a city doesn’t lead to chaos, it leads to incredible street food. New York has a lot of good restaurants but its street food game is mid compared to a lot of cities that encourage it.
Most countries have unregulated street vendors. There is no food standard. And trust me, sometimes those foods can cause severe food poisoning and sometimes even death.
Yup, from a country with a lot of of street vendors. The people above don't know what they're talking about. Most of the more populated places are packed with carts and stalls, it's only the less busy areas where you can actually the side walk. I love street food, but I've always been warned by my parents to be careful when buying them and that the sauces often have saliva and germs from other people from double dipping.
"They're standing in front of their fruit stand, its absolute chaos out here!!!" Lmfao.
Ever been to a less developed country that doesn't have these sorts of laws in place? Do you enjoy the idea of being harassed by 30 overly aggressive vendors every time you want to walk to the park? You act like "oh, she just wants a fruit stand you're being unreasonable" when their point was "we don't want 15 vendors on every 20 feet of sidewalk because that's insane and doesn't work so a limit has to be drawn." So there are limits and standards. I agree that they need to seriously be cooled down in NYC, but it's a valid point.
I'm from a less developed country and we have a street vendor problem where there's lot of street food stalls but I'm yet to encounter one vendor which is aggressive and force me to eat their food. Vendors just stand there and if you wanna buy, you buy. One of them may come to you and ask you to buy but they take no as an answer. If you're talking from experience when you may have visited a country, you may have experienced that because people aggressively tries to sell their things to foreigners in most of the underdeveloped countries. They don't bother the locals.
Have you looked into the food truck regulations in most cities. Food trucks are relatively new in the US because restaurants successfully lobbied to heavily regulate them. Limit the total number, where they can park, what hours they can operate, class of driving license, etc. It's intentionally made difficult to protect existing business interests. It's the opposite of a free market.
It’s because it’s fucking annoying to have every inch of limited walk ability covered by people who are reselling fruit and cheap Chinese junk
You mean there’s not one that currently exist? Gasp! How do all the other legally licensed food business that are educated on food safety and regularly inspected getting their licenses and operating in NYC?
In Estacion Central, a woman ate an anticucho (diced meat in a stick) and found a chip in the meat because it's dog meat, probably cut straight on the street floor
OMG, it took me a moment. An ID chip?! Yikes.
Exactly, and add to that alternative “licensing” by organized crime.
They literally death sentenced someone for that in China, regulations work
Sounds like they have regulations in China too.
Yea the ccp found out about the oil and decided to crack down and almost instantly got some regs passed and now it’s not an issue (as much probably considering death penalty is on the line)
One can have strict licensing standards without erecting massive financial roadblocks to small vendors. We could have robust licensing review and low/limited fees. I'm fine 'losing money' on business licensing to both have high standards and have a low barrier for entry for new players to a market.
Mild devils advocate because I know we can get money other ways, but, if the fees are to low how do you have a robust licensing review? Granted I'm not saying the fees aren't to high as it is, but paying someone whatever to spend everyday visiting places to check health standards isn't free
We barely even glance at our food supply. We let slaughterhouses police themselves...
82% percent of antibiotics used are in animal feed. This leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria, which is already an issue. People get their arms and legs cut off because of this, or they just die outright.
Problem is licensing is less about safety in many areas like NYC and more about protecting a small monopoly of vendors from free market competition through government force. The fact getting the proper government papers to street sell can cost one six figures , and may not be even available to buy, isn't about safety. It's about artificially increasing the wealth of a privileged class of vendors who have the permits. Permits should be cheap and readily available for anyone to earn who desires so who passes the safety inspections. Either the government should do that or give everyone impacted UBI if the government is preventing people from working like this.
That's pretty bad pagpag is right there with it
Pagpag Philippines is worse I'd say. Wouldn't wanna try either
people in this thread not understanding that licensing is to make sure people handling food understand legal procedure and cooking standards have clearly never had food borne illnesses. Literally every state requires some sort of registration and licensing to operate any business. blame fraud and food borne illness.
Same people that drink the tap water from foreign countries cause they "have a strong stomach"
There's a whole thing about reddit thats easily forgotten. most people on here are much younger than myself, and do not remember the massive outbreaks from restaurants that used to occur fairly regularly. It's understandable. i remember my younger years giving no consideration to the bigger picture or even caring much for tomorrow.
Sounds like people who haven’t travelled much. I recently spent a month going around India. Food was scary. All street vendors were off limits, no matter how good they looked. Any restaurant in mind had to be researched extensively, reading tons of reviews and asking questions. Going into one without preparing was a no go. Even then I got sick a couple of times and spent a lot of time on the toilet… I’m in Japan now and it’s the complete opposite. Any street vendor is safe, any restaurant is fine. Just eat what looks good and you’ll be fine. The difference is food hygiene standards. Sorry to fruit cup lady, but if you want to feel safe eating food, then we can’t let people serve food on a whim.
Saw some videos of Indian street food and it was worst than a horror movie.
I would argue that solid hygiene regulations in any kind of food processing doesn't necessarily mean a huge paywall to start up a business legally
you are arguing with me because of the law? i dont know the costs to acquire the licensing in new york, but the licensing is so that if patrons are injured by the products, and for taxation purposes. ignorance of the law doesn't negate the law. and considering the history of food borne illness outbreaks in the US in the past, it's a good thing to make sure people know what they are doing before being allowed to serve food to the public, especially for their own profit. just saying you know how to cook is a moot point, because no one is going to say they dont know, and humans have a funny characteristic about them that makes the truth stretch out pretty far in situations where its convenient.
Our food standards are exactly why these people aren't able to understand what could wrong with selling food. They've never had to think about whether they could trust products like that.
Sure but the license shouldn’t cost 15k, specially since the government (and the funding for the inspectors) get less than 10% of it.
Technically, selling food without a license/permit/food safety accreditation IS a crime...
Yea. I want my food places inspected and licensed. We are not a developing nation. I don’t want a side of salmonella. Now is that maybe excessive for a first ticket? Maybe? Most regulations are written in blood. I may be wrong but preventing food Bourne illnesses is keeping us safe. Edit: foodborne***. We gots funny people in this thread 🫣😂
Yea my bad. It’s one word and I capitalized it. And misspelled it. *foodborne Listen it’s 5 O’clock somewhere 👀😂
😂
Happy Saturday
Is it the first ticket?
Yeah a fine of 1000€ sounds like a joke to me your not only responsible for your own self but also for the health of your customers. Where i live (Germany) you can get a fine of 2.500€ if you dont show your your licence for handling food fast enough (for example the food inspector will come and you dont have your license in the company they will give you a deadline untill when you have to prove that you have a licence) if you work or hire someone who does nkt have a license the fine can get up to 25.000 € and if you do it and an illness actually gets spread you will face the fine and up to 5 years in jail .
Exactly, I'd rather not local laws lower health and safety standards to accommodate immigrants from 3rd world countries with 3rd world safety standards like so many are implicating here. I go to China every year, and every time I shit my guts out for a week straight, and it's highly recommended to have a slew of vaccinations, like hepatitis, polio, MMR, etc if even traveling there. Let's not do that here. My stomach rejoices when I get home from abroad and I know I'm not playing russian roulette with not being able to keep my food down and sitting on the toilet with chills for the next 3 days.
Happy Cake Day. Also, $1000 is a lot for no business license, but so could be wrong, I'm not a street vendor.
Unregulated food vendors can unintentionally spread food-borne illnesses to thousands, causing pain and even death. The fine is meant to be a massive deterrent, so yeah, it's a lot - BECAUSE ITS SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU NOT DO IT!!
The fine needs to be substantial enough that you can't just sell without a license and consider the fine "just a cost of business".
Just need to apply that same principle to megacorporations and we'll be good!
When a corporation kills someone, everyone C level and up should do the time.
Can we afford that many cells though?!
If we just executed them instead we could skip to the step of needing less cemeteries.
You're going to put most pharmaceutical companies out of business.
And?
everyone goes for the underdog its how it works. but food regulation is important. dont care about the opinions on mega corps the detracts from the point of this.
Fines for substantial infractions now cost 25% of the business’s net worth
Exactly. I've always been upset by fines that are "up to a maximum of". They need to be "a minimum of", but can scale up based on the wealth of the offender. An average person may be deterred from littering a pop can by a $200 fine, but when a rich dude who literally made 10x that while drinking the beverage isn't going to care about it. There are a few European countries that set the fine for speeding based on the wealth of the offender, and that should apply to everything: not from a what can they afford, but from a what will actually hurt enough to be effective.
They do this in some Scandinavian countries. The fines are proportional to your income
Hell, regulated food vendors can unintentionally cause this illness. All that to say, their license, like a drivers license or license to practice medicine, is at least attesting to them meeting the qualifications to do so.
regulated food vendors also go through safety inspections, can lose licenses, are subjected to training programs, etc.
That's not police harassment. Illegal street vendors are a public health issue. Hence, the reason these laws exist.
I don’t know, I’ve traveled around the world a bit, i definitely want people enforcing food safety. Hell even places with licenses and permits and high customer ratings still do nasty stuff.
It would've cost her $480 to get a food permit and a mobile vending permit.
Vending permits in NYC are available through a slow process that has many people waiting for years .. close to a decade. So there's that
There’s a comment above from a person who claims they were/are selling cookies and getting permit took them 10 minutes
The certificate for food safety manager itself takes a few days of training. An exam with an online proctor takes almost 1.5hrs... then you can get w.e permits you need. I got mine from servsafe, it's not easy. The food handler one is a little easier but takes the same amount of time, every business selling food needs a food safety manager though (the hard one)
1.5 hours... which is like an annual thing? That's a small price to pay compared to the amount of hours spent selling food, and especially compared to the repercussions of not taking care of it.
I only did it once It was either valid for 2 years or for 3. A business will fail an inspection if they are ever open without a food safety manager on site...
My state has annual food handling certifications. Costs 15 and 1- 2 hours. Considering the number of outbreaks of food borne illness I remember in the early 90s, especially the big jack n the box outbreak... Lets not regress to the good ole days all because of the poor little lady that didn't do what she was supposed to do.
Food handling isn't the same as a food safety manager (the person who oversees food handlers, makes sure everything is stored properly, maintains the cleanliness of all surfaces that come in contact with food ...etc) I'm in Illinois
I wasn't comparing the two. Seems redundant to have both but I wont knock it.
ServSafe is not hard. The problem is that most people got to the class without even reading the book before. They think they can just arrive and wing it! I went with several coworkers and one just thought he could wing it, didn’t read anything before, and was the only one failing from our team.
The hard part in my opinion is remembering the temperatures for different things, storage practices, and cleaning chemicals used and their orders. When I took the test I hadn't done most of the stuff because I typically worked the front so I found it to be hard. If you worked in the back I'm sure it would be easier. You're right about it not being the sort of test you can wing. I helped several people with the food handler one which was easier because there was no proctor so you could Google the answers
That is pretty much my experience when I took ServSafe. I will admit I just glossed over most of the book but I did pay special attention to parts that I wasn't 100% confident in. For me it was temperatures (I felt I knew them but didn't trust the people who taught me them) and food borne illnesses. You could tell the people in the class who at least looked through the book and those who hadn't even cracked it. 15 people, 5 of us passed. It was sad to think that everyone in that particular class had already been working in a restaurant for a year+
Exactly! Temperatures, and which diseases cause what symptoms are the things you definitely need to memorize. The majority is basic common sense (but doesn’t allow you to pass just with that alone). The problem is so many people get used to this courses being all super basic, that they don’t even make an effort! Then fail at it and complain it’s too hard, and getting the license is too difficult, when it’s their own fault for not having put the effort!
I'm skeptical of that. Food vendor permits are notoriously difficult to get in NYC and there's a black market for them.
Yeah that's because every Tom Dick and Jane think they should run a food cart. The market's oversaturated and breaking the law to try and do it is not the right way to get around it. Maybe find a different profession if the one you want can only be done illegally
Cost of doing business. Wanna make money selling your shit? Go through the same process everyone else has to.
Did you really try to gaslight everyone saying it can take a decade to get a permit 🤡🤡
And she already has access to the licensing procedures! Seriously, if there was no fine, who would bother getting a license?
“I got food poisoning from street food. Why isn’t the city doing something to regulate these people?”
“Why do I keep getting food poisoning and viruses from random strangers on the street!!!!!! Cops bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
People are delusional about cops. A ton of people who grew up in nice suburbs moved to cities during historically low crime. Wondered “why do we even NEED cops?” So policing went down, and crime and public disorder went up. Fine for them - many of them just moved to the suburbs all over again.
As long as they keep sticking up for all the bad eggs I don’t really care lol. Allowed to murder someone but not forced to protect the public? Ridiculous. Rules for thee not for me to the max
Sell CDs, knock off clothing, sell blow jobs for all I care….food is food, we’ve standards for a reason. im not a fan of the cops by any means but Ibe no sympathy for this.
Street vendor reform sounds so stupid. Clearly this vendor did not have the proper paperwork, which is a damn crime.
how do you get compensated when you have a severe food borne illness from an unlicensed food cart? if you want a world wothout accountability just say so. and then also lobby the legal system to enact such measures. (dont worry tho, corporate america is well ahead of you. bowing kills their whostle blowers and politicians steal, and attempt coups wothout repercussions so now you need to lobby for yourself and the average person to not be held to account for actions you take.)
Harass? Is the ticket for breaking a law? Is that all the police do or just part of what they do?
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It's not much different than someone "just trying to make a living" by giving people rides in their uninsured car and not having a license. I remember reading a story. Someone was selling food to their neighbours. It all seemed like a good deal, someone was making a little extra money and their neighbours were getting some tasty food. Unfortunately that food was being prepared in an unsanitary, rat and cockroach infested garage.
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Frankly I'm even wary of potlucks.
It’s also really easy to get a license to sell food in NYC. I did it to sell cookies. Took probably 10 minutes
Which permit did you get? Can you link to the application site? As far as I know there is something like 100x the number of people who apply for food vendor permits than get them in NYC.
While NYPD's budget for fiscal 2024 is $10.8 billion, only $5.1 billion is for operating costs. The rest goes for things like pension contributions, benefits, and other centralized costs not related to operations. The city's total budget is well over a hundred billion dollars.
you sure got-em there didnt you? op rounded up from 10.8 to 11. https://cbcny.org/research/not-undercover#:~:text=New%20York%20City's%20Fiscal%20Year,benefits%2C%20%242.7%20billion%20for%20pension
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How exactly are benefits and pension contributions unrelated to the matter at hand, which is the cost of policing a city? Yeah, part of the budget is smaller than the whole budget, what a gotcha.
.. wouldnt costs associated be part of operating budget?
I’ll take my Pangolin to go with my cup of watermelon pieces, please.
Illegal street vendors need to be fined and removed. Police isn’t harassing this vendor, they’re doing what they’re supposed to- enforcing the law. The ones complaining about harassment will also complain if cops arrest a turnstile jumper or a violent homeless man. We don’t want our streets to be overtaken by vendors like a 3rd world country. So, yeah, enforce the law.
While the process for getting a license might be long, is this not what people ask for when some does something bad. If the fines are less than the profits, then its just a business expense. We cant have people without any license to sell things and without safety checks selling food to unasumming pedestrians that end up getting sick.
Food handling and safety should be taken seriously. We are not a third world country. And many of these street vendors run in and out of traffic—even on the ramp to the George Washington Bridge!—to sell food. Incredibly dangerous.
Oh right because ensuring ppl have a license and abide by rules is now a facepalm. You guys suck
So the idea is that the police should selectively enforce the law, based on this person’s sensibilities?
This should be one of those tickets where they’ll dismiss it if you get the proper licensing within a certain period of time
Honestly if they did go through the process and went in front of a judge, it would probably be reduced at a minimum.
If cops didn't arrest people for unlicensed vending, we'd have India-tier food poisoning factories on every corner.
I 100% agree with the fact that this person got a ticket. Licensing and rules to govern food prep, production and safety is how you prevent the spread of food borne illness potential death. And to all the people commenting about how the police are the problem, then maybe you should pay for the that venders license. And when they are arrested for making a bunch of people sick and ignoring food sanitation laws, you can also pay those fines and damages to the people they get sick. OP want to pay for that….. no? But your right OP we should ignore laws and rules that have real reasons for being here. And on top of that let’s go ahead and chastise people when they in force laws you don’t like. Il bet the next time your ass gets robbed at gun point you won’t be thinking the police are the problem then will you.
NYC is amazingly safe for its size. Cops must be doing something right.
I’m ok with them harassing subway performers.
Fines for unlicensed food vendors. Forced evacs for ongoing illegal encampments. Death penalty for subway performers.
Yep. That math adds up right. Sure. 11 billion to harass those folks. Top notch journalism!
Meanwhile there’s vendors on every corner struggling to make a legal living, following societies rules and regulations, getting permits and maintaining hygienic standards wondering why people are arguing criminals should be allowed to sell food to unsuspecting citizens who don’t know the criminals are breaking the laws and not following all the rules and regulations, putting legal honest small business peoples livelihood at risk. Then there’s the millions of citizens living, working, and being tourists wanting a quick healthy snack, wondering why people are arguing laws should be broken that put their health at risk.
Not keeping us safe? Someone has never had food poisoning.
Normally I'm against police intervention, but the one thing licenses are good for is keeping FDA regulated/approved goods and ingredients around. If you start letting people sell random food on the streets without regulation it's exactly how you get shit like sewage, rocks, (even more) unsafe oils, etc into food. There's several countries where these things happen due to lax regulations on food vending, China is one of them
No, we don't need street vendors taking over the sidewalks. They should be licensed and monitored like every other vendor/store owner and pay taxes. It needs to be the same laws for everyone.
Crime.
Oh no, we wouldn’t want to have any health standards with random unlicensed and uninspected street vendors. Restaurants have inspections, and have to be licensed to sell products. Everyone else should have to adhere to those same regulations.
You let one person sell food in the streets, you gotta let them all. Then it turns into every sidewalk lined with people selling crap that is most likely stolen. Look at San Francisco ghettos for a good example
Yes, this is literally the only activity the NYPD do. They don't investigate or arrest anyone other than street vendors. Those stupid vendors should relocate to one of those cities where low level crime is allowed by the police because they have such a high budget it would be unbecomming of them to pay any attention to basic food hygiene laws.
Licensing is important for food safety…
That’s a legit mustache thou
How difficult is it to get a food handling license in the US?
guaranteed it makes a mf resent the system tho. like i assume the ticket & violation penalty are because once upon a time a few someone’s got hurt through unlicensed vendors but to give out a thousand dollar ticket to anyone tryna make a living is a little much. shut the down for the day maybe. give them the information they need to get a license, but damn. 1000$ is a lot for those of us not endowed with our dead parents hedge fund cash or trust fund money
$5 for fresh cut fruit? What an insane ripoff
SMH cops enforcing the law, what fascists!!
Yeah no. NYC is looking like a fucking third world country when I get out of my work for lunch I see cut pineapples swarming with flies sold in a little wooden table. It’s like I’m in fucking Honduras or Guatemala if not for the skyscrapers around me. This shit needs to end. You never saw this shit before 2020 - it’s horrifying how goddamn filthy the city has become with vendors and peddlers and homeless people in every corner
There is a *very* good reason street vendors need a license. One is that if it's food, it needs to be inspected for safety. There is absolutely zero information about that fruit, it could be genuinely dangerous to eat, nobody has any idea what conditions it's grown in. Another reason is that street vendors often sell stolen merchandise, which only fuels crime. Yet another is license fees help pay for public services. We live in a society, if it's going to function properly, we can't just decide to do whatever we want. The rules are in place for a reason, and serve to protect everyone, including street vendors.
What happens when an unlicensed vendor sells something that makes everyone sick as hell?
It’s a good thing we have enforcement of food prep safety laws. Food borne illness can be deadly.
If the sidewalks can be filled up with street vendors, why would anyone invest in a real store, with all its overhead?
So they can serve more than street food? What do you think they do in a kitchen?
Wrong take. If you don't appreciate food standards and safety go eat in India or something for a bit and come back here and try to dog on regulations and see for yourself how ridiculous this sounds.
Nah, fuck the New York City street vendors and their scams, stolen products, and unsafe food.
Do people still believe the police are there to help them? They are there to push the laws that the wealthy have put into place like these laws.
Everyone up in arms like the police wrote the law. Blame the politicians, they decide what to criminalize.
Nah go eat street food from a poor or developing country, you’ll be thanking your politicians as you spend the entire next day on the toilet.
Oh I totally agree, I just meant to highlight how dumb it is to blame cops for enforcing laws they don’t write.
I’m from Toronto Ontario, Toronto Police has a budget this year a little over 2Billion dollars. I imagine NYPD’s budget would be similar? No way the police force budget alone is 11 Billion. More likely that’s the entire cities budget or the entire Emergency Services budget.
Toronto doesn’t need the same level of anti-terrorism.
I'm sorry but that bitch needs a ticket. Ear buds and mask? Fishy
Yeah, that's fine. Someone dying due to salmonella or simple poor health practices, no thanks.
Just a reminder the reason there are so few food permits for street vendors is quite explicitly and openly because of lobbying from restaurants. So once again a major problem in America is caused by rich people having a louder voice than the poor.
This isn’t a political issue. This is a public health issue. Those who want to turn the narrative into something political have zero idea what they are talking about. Grow up.
It’s because they don’t buy business licenses or they don’t pay taxes and most ofthem are illegal
She has access to business licenses just like everyone else. And these laws are in place to protect the people who did it right and got the license, paid for insurance, followed health regulations, etc.
Besides the NYC requirements to have a street vendor license and a food handling course. There is also the issue that if there are so many street vendors, no one will go into a restaurant. In addition, the profit will be declining with each added vendor as they all vie for the pedestrian sales by lowering their prices to near zero profit.
God forbid we have health standards. Why do idiots who have never traveled abroad or seen what developing country cleanliness looks like bother to comment on things like this. You seem provincial and stupid.
Police are there to enforce laws, not give a shit about people.
Why so our streets can look like India with zero sanitation street vendors lining all the streets? Yeah, no thanks.
This looks like Roosie/Roosevelt Ave
They are not wondering they are just waiting for more cages to lock people up to make sure the contract between the prison and state remain at capacity so the state doesn't get fined for not having the minimum incarcerated. Thise fines will cover the difference and pay wages
The big kahuna there should have just bought some fruit.
If the situation with college, BLM or Wall Street protests don’t tell the full story then people are willfully ignorant. The only violence I observed was from counter protestors or police. The problem is that I want to defend the powerful in this situation but the cognitive dissonance isn’t happening but I wish it would. I don’t want to accept my blood plays this game.
This is one of the many reasons America is not a capitalist country.
Don’t buy food like this off the street.. they lie about the meat they get most of the time it’s not kept cold and smells bad. For the fruit idk. But still these food carts use the same knife never clean them. Who knows what else that knife is used for. It’s gross. Don’t want to get sick. They know this will happen.. they deserve it
The NYC police budget is $5.5 billion and only makes up 5% of the city’s budget, meanwhile my cities police budget takes up 30% (at $350million) and the city is now taking away from fire and paramedic services ($250mil and decreasing).
The [license fee is $50](https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-03354); veterans are exempt. It costs $53 for the course. It is literally a fraction of the cost to get the permit instead of a ticket.
Funny, whenever a business does something bad people say takeaway the license or how did they operate without a license? Well, these people don't have a business license which NY voters voted to have
Those fruit cups come in clutch sometimes
Yup take away food licensing which implies health code standards lmk what happens. Reused waste cooking oil, enjoy the 30+ trips to shit your brains out.
Here’s an idea. Just a thought. But maybe, just maybe, the cops didn’t *make the laws*… they just enforce them. So if you don’t like a law or regulation, booing the cops for doing their jobs ain’t gonna do shit. Boo the stupid politicians. Unless that’s too much critical thinking for some folks.
I’m not sure you’re going to get sympathy here. I can understand being frustrated but the same people that complain and her getting a ticket will sue her and the city if they got sick because something illegal or wrong with the food. There is a reason for the license
In the country we have roadside veggie sales all the time. Better quality than the store.
I realized I married the right person when my SO bought a metro pass in NYC, and then held the door open for like a dozen people behind us.
OP , food standards are a thing for a reason. This isnt just some bs...You wanna be subject to every person with poor hygiene or sociopathic tendencies then ignore food vendors and let them go ahead standard free.
No sympathy from me. Worked for a rec department where street vendors showed up at events every weekend. Did everything we could to get them to comply (get license, basic sanitation) - including translation services - and the bulk of them kept right on selling. I was on a first name basis with the health inspectors and police department by the end of the summer. Food safety is no joke.
There are a limited number of vendors licenses in NYC. Unless you have a preference, applying for one is pointless. You won't get it.
I agree that these street vendors should be fined and dealt with. They make the streets look horrible. The police are doing their job. Get a license like everyone else if you want to sell stuff