NEW YORK — Elected officials and residents in the Bronx are demanding answers after a viral video last week showed city workers dismantling a food stand and throwing fresh produce into the garbage.
The Street Vendor Project tweeted video of the incident over the weekend writing, "In the middle of a pandemic, in the Bronx where 1 in 5 don't have enough to eat @NYPDnews @NYCSanitation trashed a business, destroying produce in a food desert This family is just trying to run a small business, and sell affordable fruits & veggies. @NYCMayor beyond wrong."
"The vendor is clearly a beloved member of her community. Neighbors crowded around her, calling for the abuse to stop. Thousands of dollars worth of oranges, tomatoes, and other fruits trashed. Taken from an immigrant woman entrepreneur, already hard hit by the pandemic," the advocacy group said in a follow-up tweet.
The city claimed the stand had been abandoned when officials arrived to issue a violation to the unlicensed vendor and without a health inspector present, it was left with no choice but to have sanitation workers toss the pallets of fresh fruit and vegetables into a garbage truck.
“This video shows a small portion of an unfortunate situation, where abandoned material needed to be disposed of for the safety of the community. The Department of Sanitation is committed to our mission of keeping streets and neighborhoods safe, clean, and healthy,” a Sanitation Department spokesperson said in a statement to PIX11.
The vendor, Diana Hernandez Cruz, claims she was there.
"I was here present when they came here, I told them not to do it, but they did it anyway," the 36-year-old mother of four said through a translator at a rally Sunday.
Hernandez Cruz said she has been selling discount produce at White Plains Road and Pelham Parkway for five years, though without a permit.
"I work here 12 hours a day, through the rain, through the thunderstorms, through the heat, through the snow," Hernandez Cruz said. "This community is a low income community and many can't afford vegetables or food because they are expensive."
At a rally, held on the corner where the incident occurred, many came out in support of Hernandez Cruz and other street vendors.
"We are here outraged that in a borough like the Bronx with high levels of food insecurity that any agency would use bureaucratic red tape and throw produce in the garbage," said City Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson.
"For city agencies to coordinate to throw away the amount of food that I saw on the street is unconscionable," said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. "It's just absurd. It was disrespectful to the hunger that's going on here."
Gibson said the situation is further evidence of a broken system where the cap on vendor permits hasn't been raised in 40 years.
New permits are set to go out starting next year under a bill recently passed by the City Council.
The city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection later said the enforcement was not inline with its policies.
The department said it will work to ensure this wastefulness does not happen again.
Meanwhile, Cruz said she's not going anywhere.
"If they take my stuff away 20,000 times, I'm going to show up 20,000 times to work," she said.