Sean Basinski and the Street Vendor Project

Sean Basinski, who founded the Street Vendor Project, came into class today. You might see him walking around the street striking up conversation with the vendors. That’s because he used to be one himself, and now he works to help them.

He went to college at the University of Pennsylvania and readied himself for law school, but before that he made the shocking decision to open a street-vending cart of his own.

His street vending wasn't typical though. Basinski sold burritos instead of the regular food you see walking down Seventh Avenue or in Herald Square. He decided there wasn’t enough Mexican food in New York City and wanted to bring it to the streets.

After dabbling in the street vending world, he headed off to Georgetown for law school (of course), completed his studies there and founded the Street Vendor Project, an organization to help street vendors. He knew the problems vendors had and took it into his own hands to help them.

Now the organization has grown to include a board and members. The Street Vendor Project addresses issues like opening blocked streets, trying to increase the number of licenses and permits, lowering ticket fines and stopping police harassment.

It’s not as easy to be a street vendor as it seems. The city doesn’t provide an unlimited amount of licenses. In fact, if you want to sell merchandise (toys, trinkets etc), you can’t because there has been a waiting list for over 25 years since only 853 merchandise licenses are available.

Food vendors have a better chance because 3,000 licenses are available, but then they need a permit which is limited too. Sometimes people sell them on a black market, so the vendors have to pay someone who doesn’t even have a cart.

That’s where Basinski steps in. He makes the vendors aware of what’s going on. Sometimes they don’t even realize what’s wrong; they just think that’s the way it’s supposed to be!

It’s a difficult business to get started, so Basinski’s there to help out the vendors as the unlikely guide when they aren’t exactly sure of what they should do.