equality before the law

Good Day Folks,

The following is adopted from the work of Sean Basinski, the Executive Director of the Street Vending Project in New York City.

Last week Mayor Bloomberg signed into law Intro. 777, legislation spearheaded by the Street Vendor Project in NYC. The SVP was organized to give vendors a voice in that great city.

The new law requires the city to provide interpreters for vendors and other small business owners at the Environmental Control Board, where vendors fight tickets issued by various regulatory authorities. A recent article in Crains New York discusses the bill and the case of Cheikh Fall, a vendor and SVP board member.

For a "Kafka meets John Belushi" look at the what happened before Intro. 777, was signed into law take a look at this transcript http://streetvendor.org/media/pdfs/Munnu%20Dewan%20hearing.pdf of SVP member Munnu Dewan trying to represent himself in a hearing, without an interpreter and with little success. Munnu was ordered to pay a $300 fine.

In short, our diverse society benefits from vendors and merchants, the "third places" they help create, the eyes on the street that they are, but these benefits to the public are not without some costs, costs that are entirely reasonable and commonly born: equal standing before a court.