I am the president of the United Bodegas of America. Our members are small business owners who came here as immigrants, opened businesses, operated legally, and contributed to their communities, but now, they face an existential crisis.
Our City Council recently passed a law to decriminalize illegal vending. Many of these illegal vendors sell food on the streets, competing with our members’ businesses without complying like we do with local laws that protect public health and public safety.
Thankfully, Mayor Adams vetoed this misguided law. Now, the Council is trying to override his veto this coming Wednesday. But if this law takes effect, illegal vending will no longer be treated as a misdemeanor, and illegal vendors will no longer face meaningful financial penalties of up to $1,000 per violation. Instead, the only consequence of illegal vending will be a civil fine of $38 or $50 — a mere slap on the wrist that would allow illegal vendors to operate with impunity.
How do Council sponsors purport to justify this? They claim that it will protect struggling immigrants compelled to illegally vend from facing jail time for doing so. But that is a false premise for two reasons: no one goes to jail for illegal vending, and the businesses hurt most by this law are themselves owned by immigrants, also struggling to make it here — only they are operating legally, paying taxes, and obeying the law.
Indeed, most of the small businesses in this city — and the vast majority of its licensed vendors — are owned and operated by immigrants just trying to realize the American Dream.
To those council members who say this is a debate about policy, we respond it’s about fairness, survival, and the future of immigrant-owned small businesses and licensed vendors across New York City. If council members want to create more opportunities to legally vend, they should raise the cap on vending licenses by a sensible number. But this legislation, in effect, lifts the cap entirely, leaving no real consequence for illegal vending.
Our bodegas, small restaurants, family-run shops and licensed vendors already operate under enormous pressure. We sacrifice every day to follow the law by paying high rents, utilities, and insurance, meeting payroll, paying workers compensation, and complying with the Health Department, FDNY, NYPD, and the Labor Department. It is exhausting and expensive, but we do it because it is the right way, the legal way, to build a business and pursue the American Dream.
Illegal vendors do none of this. They set up on a corner with no overhead, no insurance, no payroll, no inspections, no compliance, and compete directly with us, often selling the same food at cheaper prices simply because it costs them nothing to operate. Meanwhile, we shoulder every regulation, every burden, and every expense.
How is this fair to us as immigrants who have risked everything — family savings, loans, and years of sacrifice — to build legitimate businesses? How does the city expect us to survive when the City Council would allow an underground economy to flourish unchecked?
This is not only an issue of economic justice. It is also a matter of public safety and public health. Illegal food vendors operate outside the strict health standards that protect New Yorkers.
By lowering penalties to a token fine, the city will be encouraging more unregulated food businesses, putting our neighborhoods and our families at risk. It will undermine the many immigrants who play by the rules, follow the law, pay taxes, and work 16-hour days to keep their doors open. In essence, it will legalize all vending by eliminating any real penalty for illegal vending. That is simply the wrong thing to do.
Our elected leaders should be supporting the law-abiding, not encouraging the lawless. It is time to protect the immigrant entrepreneur, protect legal small businesses, and protect the American Dream.
Rodríguez is a bodega owner in the Bronx who also serves as president of the United Bodegas of America.
