NEW YORK — Vendors in the Bronx say the Department of Sanitation’s enforcement is crippling their lives.
With frequent enforcement sweeps, one vendor said Monday the city’s broken system makes it difficult to survive.
“This supports my family, my rent, my bills,” Miguel Varela said.
In the blink of an eye, Varela, a street vendor on Hugh J. Grant Circle in the Parkchester, watched half his business disappear. A video he took shows his merchandise bagged up and confiscated by DSNY last week in yet another enforcement sweep in the borough.
Since Dec. 7, Varela received four $250 tickets from DSNY for selling without a license. It’s more money than what he makes in two days sometimes. He said he has been waiting for a license for almost a decade.
“It is difficult and I don’t have anything to pay with. I don’t have anything to eat because they took the merchandise away, the house rent and everything for us to bear,” Varela said in Spanish.