From: nattyreb@ix.netcom.com
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:22:06
Subject: !*Giuliani fundraiser/400 streets restricted to VENDING

FORWARDED MESSAGE
====================

From: ARTISTpres@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 11:20:14 EDT

To all of my fellow vendors, activists and those interested in public space 
issues,

The Street Vendor Review Panel will, according to the Daily News article
that 
follows, hold a hearing on June 24th about restricting an additional 400 
streets to vending. These restrictions will affect every variety of vendors 
including First Amendment protected street artists and book vendors as well 
as disabled vets, 
food vendors and general vendors. Once these restrictions are in place, even 
the selling of political literature will be prohibited on those streets. Now 
is the time for militancy, not begging. 

Please get the word to every vendor you can to attend this hearing. We must 
make a very loud noise about this latest effort by Giuliani's Street Vendor 
Review Panel and the BIDs [Business Improvement Districts] to eliminate us 
from the streets. 

The vast majority of the vendors whose occupations will be eliminated by 
these restrictions are honest, hardworking (and law-abiding) racial and 
ethnic minorities. The intensely anti-vendor policies of Giuliani are just 
another arm of the corporate fascism and thinly veiled racism that is behind 
every aspect of this criminal administration. 

Giuliani weakened the Mafia only to turn the City over to the BIDs, 
undemocratic, unconstitutional pseudo-governments that rule their
territories 
very much like the Mafia previously did, extracting protection money in the 
form of an assessed tax that now amounts to more than 70 million dollars per 
year. 

While they falsely claim that vendors are congesting streets, the real
agenda 
for the BIDs is a kind of ethnic cleansing of what they consider to be 
"their" streets but which are in fact, the public's streets. Once the
present 
population of vendors are forced out of business, the BIDs will install (via 
the warrant system in the proposed new vending bill) their own vendors 
complete with the billions of dollars of corporate/BID advertising that is 
the real economic prize behind this battle.

The BIDs continue to seek vendor advocates, vendor groups and individual 
vendors to publicly support their proposed new vending bill, Into #511/ also 
known as #110. This anti-vendor City Council legislation was written by the 
BIDs themselves which they've admitted in numerous meetings and public 
venues. They are trying to use these vendors as a ruse in order to make it 
appear that some or all vendors support this death warrant for vending
[visit 
our website for more info]. No vendor that understood the content of the 
proposed bill would ever consider supporting it nor would any community 
group. Don't let yourself be manipulated in this way. You don't have to make 
a deal with the BIDs or sell out other vendors to survive.
Fight the Mayor...fight the BIDs fight for your rights!

Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com  (718) 369-2111
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html 

[A note to all anti-Giuliani activists; Tonight Tuesday 5/25/99 at the 
Sheraton Hotel in midtown the Mayor will hold his biggest fundraiser to
date. 
He's anticipating more than 1 million dollars in donations from those he 
caters to: real estate and corporate interests that are lined up to get
theit 
tax write-offs and special deals. This is a great opportunity to expose 
Giuliani. Please pass the word]

Daily News 5/25/99
Vendors Face 400-Block Ban 

By MICHAEL FINNEGAN 
Daily News Staff Writer

he city set the stage for a new
showdown between Mayor Giuliani and
sidewalk peddlers yesterday by unveiling
a plan to close about 400 blocks to street
vendors. 

The proposal would close stretches of some
of the city's busiest streets to sellers of hot
dogs, doughnuts, sunglasses, watches and
most other food or merchandise. 

It comes four months after the city shut
100 blocks to food vendors and 49
blocks to other peddlers after scaling
back a much more sweeping proposal by
the city Street Vendor Review Panel. 

Most of the new closings would be in
midtown, parts of Canal and Chambers
Sts. in lower Manhattan and streets in
Brooklyn and Queens. 

The plan got an immediate thumbs-down
from vendors and their customers. 

David Rivera, who works at the Wagging
Tail dog day-care center in lower
Manhattan, said there is no reason to close
Chambers St. to vendors, as the plan would
require. He bought a frankfurter yesterday
from Chambers St. vendor Md Miah, a
recent immigrant from Bangladesh.

"I come by here every day," Rivera said. "It
just holds me till I get home." 

Jeff Cicio, president of the Big Apple Food
Vendors Association, called the proposal
devastating. 

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
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