Lifting the cap on street-vendor permits would bring in $17M, IBO finds

Raising the cap on the number of street vending permits in New York City would boost the city’s tax revenues by millions of dollars and improve the lives of thousands of street vendors, according to a report by the Independent Budget Office. 

The city has restricted the number of street vending permits since the 1980s and thousands of chiefly immigrant or minority New Yorkers currently sell their wares on the street either without a permit or with a permit leased from a permit-holder for thousands of dollars a year.