BY ALINE REYNOLDS | For many workers across the city, street food vendors have become popular alternatives to delis and cafes. Many concur that the falafels, hot dogs and other bites are tasty, cheap and quick. Whether the food is handled properly, however, is often an unknown.
City politicians are hoping to solve the mystery legislatively. Councilmember Dan Garodnick, along with fellow Councilmembers Jumaane Williams and Ydanis Rodriguez, has sponsored legislation that would oblige the approximately 5,000 street food vendors to post letter grades on the front of their trucks. Garodnick is now pushing for a City Council hearing on the bill for the fall.
“We want the public to know that, if they buy food from a mobile food establishment, it carries the same safety [requirement] as they could expect from a restaurant,” said Dan Pasquini, Garodnick’s communications director. “If it makes sense for restaurants as a matter of public safety, it should apply to food vendors.”
The sanitary and other guidelines for street vendors are “very, very similar” to those the city’s restaurants must abide by, assured NYC Health Commissioner Tom Farley, who appeared at an August 1 press conference in Long Island City to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the grading system.
The Councilmembers are hoping to make vendor inspection results equally conspicuous to the public. In order to find their latest inspection results, patrons typically have to call 3-1-1. “Now, [violation results] get frequently left at home. We’d want it where it’s easily visible,” said Garodnick’s legislative director, Teresa Boemio, told members of the Quality of Life committee at its July 21 meeting. Eating food made in unsanitary conditions, she added, is “a bad, fast way to get sick.”
During a stop at Spark’s Deli in Long Island City, the first eatery that received an “A” grade after the grading system was introduced to restaurants about a year ago, Mayor Bloomberg praised the vendor initiative. “Personally, I would love to see… a sign up there telling whether or not the guy washed his hands before he reached in and pulls out the hot dog,” he said. “The fact is that this letter-grading system has done a great job for the public and industry alike.”
But it wouldn’t be all that simple, according to the D.O.H. Applying the grading policy to street vendors would prove to be challenging, Farley said, since only 20 of the NYC Department of Health’s 115-to-140 inspectors are assigned to the moving food carts— making it tricky for the Department to keep track of them, let alone inspect them. Also, “Carts are mobile, making regular re-inspections — such as those done at restaurants as part of grading — more difficult,” Farley said.
On August 1, throngs of office and construction workers lined up in front of two falafel stands along Greenwich St. to grab a quick lunch. While acknowledging they were eating grade-less food, most of them said they would like to see grades plastered onto the trucks.
“I’d take a B, but nothing lower than a B,” said Loretta O’Connor, who works on Hudson Street and chows down vendor food once a week. The letter grades are important, she said, because “you want to make sure it’s clean and nothing’s floating around in there.”
“In the end, it does matter. I’d be worried about going to a “B” or “C” [stand],” agreed CitiGroup employee Maria Lombardi, who frequents the Greenwich Street stand nearly every day.
The grading system, Lombardi added, would be “bragging rights” to the vendors are sanitary. “It’d be good for their business,” said Lombardi.
More information is better than less, according to Citigroup worker Graham Gullens. “If it was an A or B, I’d still go. If it was a C, I think I’d go to the next guy,” he said.
Other patrons said they didn’t care one way or another. “You don’t expect [a grade] from a food vendor. You trust [the food] based on demand,” said Lorez Gill, who picks up chicken and rice from the popular Greenwich Street vendor at least three times a week.
When asked whether Gill would continue purchasing food from the vendors if they received a bad grade, she said, “I’ve thought about it before, and I decided I’d probably still come. It’s cost effective and it tastes really good.”
“I’d probably eat here anyway,” echoed area worker Michael Troxler. “Sometimes you end up with a stomach ache, but that’s part of the process.”
Artwork mover Roy Iriarte, who stopped at the falafel stand for a falafel sandwich in between shifts, said vendor food is often the only lunch option available when he’s on the run.
“Sometimes we’re in a rush, hunger takes over, and you just eat anywhere,” he said. “Plus, there are hardly any lunch places around here.”
Following Boemio’s appearance at the Quality of Life meeting, C.B. 1 passed a resolution endorsing the vendor bill. “There are many food vendors around Lower Manhattan,” the resolution reads, “and with the opening of the 9/11 memorial on Sept. 12, 2011, the quality and safety of food for vendor carts are more important than ever.”
While committee members such as Jeff Ehrlich voted in favor of the idea, some of them are dubious about whether the D.O.H. would be able to enforce the regulation. “The D.O.H. doesn’t have the personnel or inspectors to really carry this out completely,” said Ehrlich. “They have enough trouble getting to all the restaurants.”
