MTA vendor complaints in NYC nearly doubled in first five months of 2024

Complaints to the MTA about unlicensed vending nearly doubled in the first five months of this year, compared to the same time last year, according to internal agency data obtained by Gothamist.

The increase in complaints — 198 this year, up from 104 this time last year — coincides with anecdotal reports of an uptick in street vendors on New York City subways, with public attention particularly focused on newly arrived migrant children selling candy.

Despite the overall increase, the agency received just 26 complaints of unlicensed vending in May, down from a high of 49 in February.

“More data is needed to determine whether this decline is due to an actual drop in vending or customers simply becoming desensitized to the activity," an internal agency presentation on the data says.

Commercial activity in subways and stations is banned, unless explicitly authorized by the agency, under New York City Transit rules of conduct. MTA spokesperson Lucas Bejarano said in a statement that “the NYPD enforces those rules to enhance quality of life, safety and security in the subway system.”

MTA spokespeople did not provide responses to questions about the data. The agency’s website advertises that complaints can be submitted through an online portal.

The NYPD and city parks department have issued more tickets to vendors this year, according to reporting by local news outlet The City But the city’s main vending enforcement agency, the Department of Sanitation, replaced the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection in that role in 2023. Sanitation has issued 22% fewer vending tickets this year, according to The City.

The internal MTA presentation shows that subway stations with the most complaints include the busiest stations — among them Times Square, Grand Central, Fulton Center, Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center, and 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights.

About 65% of the vending complaints were about individual adults, 19% about adults with children, and 13% about unaccompanied children.

That demographic breakdown roughly lines up with vending complaints from the same time period last year. But there’s been a slight uptick in the share of complaints about adults, up from 63% last year, and a slight decrease in those about adults with children, down from 23% last year.

Monica Sibri, coleader and cofounder of Algun Día, a local aid group mainly assisting immigrant vendors with children, said the MTA was “irresponsible” for not previously sharing the data with city agencies and aid groups so that they could improve their work with vendors.

While her group has been regularly meeting with Mayor Eric Adams' administration to help inform the city’s policies on vendors with children, Sibri said officials could do more to connect vendors with child care and other social services.

In Algun Día’s recent local survey of 75 migrant vendors with children, 83% said that lack of child care was a major barrier to finding other work.

“When will the city and the agencies and the community organizations take action?” Sibri said. “I keep saying, 'Is it too late?'”

In response to the complaint data, Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, deputy director of the local nonprofit Street Vendor Project, echoed long-standing calls to reform the city’s street vendor regulations.

For decades, the city has capped the number of permits and licenses for street vendors to operate legally, with just a few thousand available for the estimated 20,000 and counting street vendors in New York City.

The Street Vendor Project is pushing for a City Council bill to lift the caps, along with other reforms, such as removing the criminal penalties for breaking vending laws. Advocates and councilmembers point to a boom in street vending that started during the pandemic and has continued as new migrants flock to the city in large numbers.

In recent years, viral videos have also shown the arrests of street vendors selling fruit and churros in subway stations — and stirred charges of over-policing of vulnerable people for minor offenses.

Kaufman-Gutierrez suggested that the MTA could rely on street vendors to help fill vacant retail spaces at subway stations across the city.

“Vending in the MTA is not new,” she said. “There’s consistently a demand for fresh and quick snacks.”