Walk down the main shopping corridors in Ward One and you’ll likely see vendors lining sidewalks, selling food, artisanal products and T-shirts. Sounds of English and Spanish ripple through the air as vendors socialize and market their goods, which often come from their cultures. Many of them rely on this industry as their primary source of income; and yet, they risk facing criminal charges if found selling goods on a sidewalk without an official vending license.
However, the street vending landscape is likely about to change. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1), along with several other councilmembers, has been spearheading efforts to preserve and protect local sidewalk vending economies across the District.
In October, Nadeau introduced the Sidewalk Zones Amendment Act of 2020 with two other councilmembers. If passed, the legislation would decriminalize vending without a license, as well as formalize the local industry through implementing greater structure and an expanded, more accessible legal path to vending.
Nadeau has been working with Vendedores Unidos, a group of organized vendors, on ways to eliminate barriers to legal vending, explained Luz Eleane Martinez, the communications director for Councilmember Nadeau. Current barriers are disenfranchising many small business owners, particularly those from minority groups, she said.
One obstacle is police enforcement of vending licenses. Negative encounters between police and minority groups are certainly nothing new, but in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and numerous others, many are calling for the role of police in society to be scaled back, especially in non-violent situations where police intervention may actually escalate the problem.
Criminal penalties were only added to street vending legislation in the District several years ago, allowing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) greater authority in these communities. In diverse neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, where most sidewalk vendors are from minority groups, vendors have for years experienced police harassment, often justified by this legislation. Just last November, a video went viral of a 15-year-old girl on the ground, crying in pain and surrounded by officers, following a confrontation she had with police. Genesis Lemus had been selling plantain chips from a cart in Columbia Heights.
In July, Nadeau and six other councilmembers in the District introduced an emergency, albeit temporary bill to decriminalize unlicensed street vending. They hoped the legislation would stop negative police interactions while they worked on a more substantial and permanent policy to establish and formalize vending.
“The MPD is often involved in vending enforcement. We would like to remove police from the equation and are confident that keeping regulatory enforcement as the main tool will be sufficient,” Martinez said.
The regulatory enforcement referred to falls on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), which oversees business licensing. Vendors have always had to comply with DCRA regulations or face fines, and that practice would not change under the new legislation. Unlicensed vendors might not face criminal citations, but they’d still be subject to penalties, which Martinez said will encourage people to comply with the rules.
However, the biggest obstacle vendors face, Nadeau discovered, is the lack of licenses available in the District. In Columbia Heights there are only three vending licenses, according to Martinez. Vendors across the District who have already obtained licenses simply renew them year after year, meaning those without are essentially cut off from any legal paths to the industry.
“It was a matter of licenses not being available, so no matter what these vendors did or how long they wanted to wait to be in full compliance, the licenses just didn’t exist,” Martinez explained.
The new legislation addresses this issue, creating two types of licenses: one for individual vendors and the other for managers who oversee multiple vendors. What’s more, there will be community organizations assisting vendors who are less comfortable with going through the process of getting a license.
Martinez is confident the greater accessibility of licenses will dramatically reduce unlawful vending in the District. “Vendors for years have been wanting to get licenses,” she said. “They want to be in full compliance.”
And for those worried about overcrowding on sidewalks or the possibility that easier licensing options could attract vendors from outside the District, Martinez said the legislation will account for these concerns.
The bill not only creates more licenses, but also gives an industry that’s already functioning structure by implementing designated vending zones, each with a limited number of spaces for vendors. If pedestrians run into issues with vendors overcrowding areas within these zones or selling goods outside a designated area, they can call 311 to report it and DCRA will carry out enforcement.
The pilot for this initiative will be the establishment of the Columbia Heights Sidewalk Vending Zone, complete with six designated vending spots. While Ward One was chosen due to its heavy concentration of vendors, Martinez expects to see the project expand to other wards across the District.
“We have a ton of really talented people across all eight wards that make really amazing things, and things close to their culture, that we hope that this will be a positive thing for,” Martinez said.
The bill has so far only been introduced and is awaiting a hearing. Nadeau’s office expects to receive a lot of public input throughout the legislative process, before the bill’s final markup and implementation. It’s still unclear if this will occur before the end of the year or will have to wait until the new council is installed.
