Caveat Vendor

Crain's Insider is reporting this morning that City Councilman Alan Gerson is going to propose recommendations "to rein in street vendors." The councilman calls the current situation "vendor anarchy" and we agree.

Gerson is likely to propose a task force to "simplify rule-making and enforcement which are split among at least four city agencies." The Alliance has been active on one aspect of this out-of-control situation but we welcome Gerson's attention to the overall problem. His comments this morning are on point: "The current rules are not being enforced, in part because some of them are not easy to enforce."

That being said, the fiasco with fruit vendors needs to be addressed with an immediate legislative remedy. We will be meeting with the speaker and council staff shortly and are hopeful that this will happen soon.