Contact: Sunny Mindel/Jennifer Chait (212) 788-2958
Specifically, Intro. 546-A allows the Health Department to issue more than one food vendor permit per person to vend in any area under the Parks Department's jurisdiction. Persons who enter into agreements with the Parks Department would be exempt from any restrictions on the number of food vendor permits that could be issued to any one person. Additionally, such food vendor permits would be exempt from the current cap on the total number of food vendor permits that may be issued by the City.
Parks Department vendor permits would only be valid during that period of time for which the concessionaire is authorized by the Parks Department to operate mobile food units within its jurisdiction. If, for any reason, the concessionaire's authorization to operate a mobile food vending unit is rescinded by the Parks Department, or if such authorization otherwise terminates or expires, then the full-term or temporary permit issued by the Department of Health would be automatically void.
When the City Council adopted Local Law 15 of 1995, which instituted the one- permit per-person limitation, it sought to restrain certain abuses practiced by food vendor permittees, namely, the hoarding of multiple food vendor permits by one person who rented them out at exorbitant rates to those who could not obtain their own permits. This problem has never presented itself with respect to Parks concessions.
Moreover, since the Parks Department can control the number and placement of food vendors in the parks, the parks concessions do not present the saturation problem that the cap on the total number of food vendor permits was intended to cure.
For the reasons previously stated, I will now sign the bill.