Since 2020, the intersection of Bedford, Nassau, and Lorimer has emerged as something of a hub for vintage lovers, with outdoor vendors set up next to brick-and-mortar stores like Awoke Vintage and Tired Thrift. However, the city’s Sanitation department, in tandem with the NYPD, shut down several vendors this past Saturday.
“In this case, we conducted six inspections,” a spokesperson confirmed to Greenpointers. “Three vendors were found to be operating without a license. They were issued summonses, and their items were confiscated. We also found three abandoned vendor setups, which we also confiscated.”
Sanitation did not say what prompted the inspections, only that it was part of “routine enforcement.” The vendors can later reclaim their items from DSNY.
The move garnered mixed reception from the neighborhood, some of whom felt like the vendors were a cumbersome nuisance, others enjoying the ad-hoc nature of the set up. The Adams administration has ramped up enforcement of street vendors, often food vendors competing for a limited number of available permits. City Limits reported that “DSNY has doled out 3,281 tickets to vendors,” at time of their reporting in November 2024. “Sanitation summonses alone represent more than double the 1,535 tickets the agency issued last year since April 2023, when the city made DSNY responsible for enforcement.”
How surprising – our mayor is focusing on the dumbest things ever and messing with innocent people who aren’t causing any harm. Maybe he could, like, focus on helping people in NYC instead of flying to the Paris Olympics on our dime and kissing Trump’s ass. Can’t wait till he gets voted out, he is just the worst.
Those vendors were an absolute blight on the neighborhood attracting the dregs of society and hurting nearby businesses. Good riddance!
Good. They were using a public space to sell overpriced used garbage. Good riddance
It’s about time ! Unlicensed vendors selling junk or items that was donated to them. I hope they open the street up to allow cars again where the bus can go back to it’s old route of Bedford Avenue to Manhattan Avenue (hey transplants) that was way back when the MTA was going to close the L train for 2 years and they re-routed the bus to go up Nassau Avenue to turn left onto Manhattan Avenue now. This has led to increased traffic that has backed up on Bedford Avenue and Nassau Avenue all the way to McGuinness Boulevard. If people in that area want more open space, viola, you have McCarren Park right across the street.
i love cops and everything they do is smart and cool and promotes a healthy sense of community. bravo
I’m happy they are moving them out. I live a block away on Norman and people set up racks and tables in front of residential buildings that they don’t even live. It’s crazy. The attitude from these sellers is also astounding. Who sets up in front of a building they don’t even live in?
Although this tiny sliver of Greenpoint is far from an ideal place for crowded vendor stalls, still, I think of a New Yorl City that once welcomed the omnipresent pushcarts of immigrants and the poor, as they struggled to survive and eventually thrive, as they helped build up our great city, themselves, and their children’s lives Today we sweep out gentrified sidewalks of “unwanted ” people as if they were disposable trash, while we scapegoat migrants as threat who are “destroying our city”. So sad.So callous. So short-sighted. We can do better…
they do not p[ay taxes but use services