The New York Times has produced a fascinating story about turf wars among the city’s food cart vendors, particularly clashes between the traditionally immigrant-run carts and trendy new arrivals. Like in DC, New York set a cap on the number of cart permits. Yet while DC’s cart scene slumped into mediocrity under the city’s burdensome regulations, entrepreneurial New Yorkers worked out their own extralegal ways to operate:
The city, other than blocking certain streets entirely and enforcing parking regulations, does not dictate locations for food carts. But spots are virtually owned by vendors who have worked them for decades; they are handed down within families and even sold on the black market. [...]
Vendors say that the traditional code of the streets may be effective, but that it feeds on fear, intimidation and the city’s lack of enforcement of permit rules.
“It only works because everyone is a little bit in the wrong, and no one is 100 percent clean,” said Mr. Lao [a new cart owner]. “We can’t go through legal channels to resolve our disputes.” Mr. Lao was referring to the notorious black market in the food vendor permits issued by the city’s Department of Health. Most of the vendors interviewed would not talk publicly about the status of their permits. But several of them, asking not to be identified because of the dubious legality of the arrangements, said they had secured theirs by paying unauthorized “fixers” or by entering into partnerships with existing permit holders. A common form of retribution among vendors is to report one another to city authorities for permit violations.
The existing system is a tribute to the spontaneous creation of norms and property rights, but it’s breaking down as outsiders jump into the cart boom. Increasing the number of legal permits and auctioning them off, as one bill proposes, would be a partial solution. Establishing legally recognized, tradeable property rights for cart locations might be another, but it doesn’t appear that anyone is talking about that.
Another significant conflict is between cart owners and owners of restaurants and cafes who resent the low-cost competition. Read the whole thing here.
Previously:
Cart watch, NYC edition
DC cart watch, public choice edition
Hot dogs and beyond
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David Boaz catches The Washington Post giving the DC government a little too much credit for the city’s booming street food scene:
The jump headline says, “With City’s Help, Vendors Break the Mold.” Author Tim Carman writes, “Both [new food] vendors still needed public assistance.” And “the city [has] been working with vendors to give hungry Washingtonians a taste of what they want.” All praise the D.C. government, font of good food.
But of course the city hasn’t produced the food. It hasn’t subsidized the vendors. It hasn’t put vendors together with investors. All it has done is to lift, in one part of the city, “regulations that have choked the life out of D.C.’s street food for decades.” There are licensing rules (and a moratorium on issuing any new licenses), prohibitions on hiring employees, cart size rules, regulations on where you can park a cart at night, and so on. So the “public assistance” the vendors received was to be exempted from some of the regulations, inside a 32-block demonstration zone.
It reminds me of the wisdom of Henry David Thoreau: “This government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way.”
Hey, I deserve credit for helping out the vendors too. I never once robbed them at gunpoint while they tried to run their businesses.
Not that I would. On the Fly’s tacos and the yellow cart’s bulgogi were a significant improvement to my life off K Street.
Previously:
DC cart watch, public choice edition
DC cart watch: On the Fly tacos
Hot dogs and beyond
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You can lead a fat guy to a fruit cart, but can you make him eat? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is betting that he can. The city is issuing permits for new food carts that will only be permitted to sell fruits and vegetables:
The carts, which are expected to start appearing on the streets later this summer, are restricted to low-income areas that have the fewest sources of fresh produce in the city.
Coming in the wake of the city’s indoor smoking ban, a campaign to get restaurants to eliminate the use of trans-fats, and a requirement that menus list calories, the Green Carts project is Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest public-health crusade.
This isn’t a terrible idea, but before lamenting the lack of fruit available in NYC food carts it’s worth noting that the city has been restricting the supply of new permits since the 1970s. If the city had been more willing to open the cart market to competition, it might see more variety in what gets sold (as has recently happened here in DC). Strict regulations and frequent fines also drive up the costs of doing business, possibly pushing fruit carts off the market.
Fruit carts have the advantage of being much cheaper to purchase: $1,000 compared to $15-30,000 for carts designed to process prepared food or coffee, according to this fascinating article from New York magazine. The fact that vendors aren’t buying them suggests that on-the-go diners would rather have stuff like pretzels, hot dogs, and kebabs, thank you very much.
There is also the fear that the subsidized fruit carts will hurt the revenues of grocers. If they drive grocers out of business, they might even lessen access to produce in some neighborhoods.
In short, subsidizing green carts might marginally drive up fruit and vegetable consumption, but it’s silly for the city to be playing favorites. Freeing the cart market would likely do much more to encourage variety and deliver the products people actually want.
[Via Coldmud.]
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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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