New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang is talking to members of the media next to Canal Street Subway Station in New York City. | Spencer Platt / Getty Images
NEW YORK – Andrew Yang’s opponents on the left have promised to start dragging the popular frontrunner. This week, they launched a powerful new attack: Yang wants to cage street vendors.
Yang has been taking hits from rival candidates for weeks as he continues to vote for the Democratic primary for mayor in June. But progressive people – who are slow to react in the wake of Yang’s rise – have now begun to paint the former presidential candidate as too conservative for city politics and out of touch with liberal values.
After a weekend of attacks on remarks he made last year about abortion, Yang made heavy fire on Sunday and Monday for tweet“You know what I hear over and over again – that NYC does not apply rules against unlicensed street vendors.”
“No one says it except you,” the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, who did not endorse in the race, tweeted Sunday. “We no longer need police to arrest street vendors.”
The battle over street vendors in New York City involves several heated debates – from aggressive policing of women selling churros in subways, at the heavy fees, lunch carts, often immigrants, pay for permit holders. Food trucks and carts are the main source of income for many immigrants, and granting more permits to halal wagons, hot dogs and churros vendors has long been a ridiculous political struggle – more so now that brick-and-mortar restaurants are struggling to get back. comes from the pandemic.
City Governor Scott Stringer, whose mayoral campaign has so far remained in the ballot box, went to Queens on Monday with leading Latina supporters to denounce Yang’s support for more enforcement.
“He wants to initiate a repression of providers and send enforcement to the immigrant communities that have driven us through the pandemic,” Stringer, a progressive progressive career politician, told Corona Plaza, a popular Queens venue for Latin -American food sellers.
‘How can you claim that you love New York and want to throw hard-working New Yorkers who want to make a living in prison? What is it about? “Maybe he just wants to take away their cars, send them home with $ 10,000 fines they can never pay off,” he said. This is a criminalization of poverty. ‘
Jessica Ramos and Catalina Cruz, a member of the assembly, joined him, two politicians popular with progressives who endorsed his campaign.
Ramos (D-Queens) said she was “hurt” and “insulted” by Yang’s comments. “You can not be mayor of New York City if you do not know how New York City works,” she said. ‘It’s not it [vendors] do not want a permit, that is, they can not get a permit because there is a BS restriction on the limited number of sales authorizations issued. ‘
Yang said on Monday he regretted the tweet and his intention was not to discourage street vendors.
‘I like street vendors like a lot of New Yorkers do. And I support the measures to try to increase the number of licenses, ”he said when asked to respond to the criticism during an unrelated campaign event. “I think we are all really on the policy side. And I regret that I tackled such an honestly complicated and nuanced matter on that medium. It was not the right medium for that. ”
The street vendor valve follows a onslaught of criticism Friday and Saturday, when a clip from an interview in February 2020 appeared on Twitter, in which the former presidential candidate says: Democrats should not celebrate an abortion at any stage in pregnancy. ‘
The clip does not contain the question to which Yang responds, and that is how he would gain more political support for reproductive rights.
Much of the heat against Yang comes from competitive campaigns. But POLITICO reported Monday that Gabe Tobias, head of the progressive political action committee, Our City, “wants to ensure that no voters vote for a conservative, non-progressive candidate and that is certainly Andrew Yang.”
The president of Yang and Brooklyn, Eric Adams, came first and second in the early polls, respectively. Both run on a platform that appeals to more moderate Democrats.
In the case of Adams, the former NYPD captain stressed the importance of public safety and rejected the calls to reject the police. Yang appealed to the private sector, especially small businesses, and warned to further increase taxes on the city’s highest earners.
“We are more concerned about progressive people voting for Andrew Yang, than that we are voting for Eric Adams,” Tobias said.
The issue of street vendors is made more complicated by restaurants and retailers devastated by the pandemic, while urban tourism has dried up.
“The political commentators can analyze the Twitter debate, but the fact is that the sales system has been broken and that it is at the expense of sellers, brick-and-mortar businesses and the public,” said Andrew Rigie, head of NYC Hospitality Alliance said what lobby has. for restaurants. ‘The city recently passed a law that increases the number of sales permits and creates a dedicated office for enforcement and support, but we can not debate the fact that the public deserves to expect safe food, no matter where it is sold or by whom. ‘
The city council voted in January for a comprehensive overhaul to add more than a decade 4,000 new street vendor permits. Many street vendors have long been operating illegally or using expensive black market permits because they cannot obtain permits directly from the city, which has had a maximum of 5,100 since the 1980s.
Yang on Monday stressed his support for the measure, pointing out that councilor Margaret Chin, who sponsored the expansion of the street vendor, approved.
“The goal should be to try to increase the number of licenses and support these providers and bring more into the formal economy,” Yang said. Still, he said the city is responding more to individual business owners’ complaints about unlicensed sellers.
‘If the owner of a small business thinks that an unlicensed street vendor is somehow a nuisance to customers, then it should be something they can seek the city’s help with without doing anything wrong to the street vendor. . many cases simply move like 500 feet, or in one direction or another, ”he said.
Janaki Chadha and Sally Goldenberg contributed to this report.