Local supermarkets in NYC are taking aim at sidewalk fruit stands

There’s a food fight playing out across New York City.

Several local supermarket chains are lobbying city health and sanitation officials to take aim at street fruit vendors, saying they are not subject to the same rules as brick-and-mortar stores and should be subject to heavier enforcement and regulation.

The vendors, who were hammered by COVID, say the argument is a smokescreen and that they’re being scapegoated by the supermarkets.

Earlier this month, Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist representing Morton Williams, Gristedes and other grocers wrote to the Department of Health, asking for a stronger enforcement plan to crack down on street vendors, citing a 2021 industry report that outlined alleged health code violations at different produce stands.

Supermarket owners argue if they were to handle produce like street vendors, they’d be shut down. They claim the oversize fruit stands and improperly stored produce are harming their businesses, and that the current setup is unfair to them — they’ve got to pay costly rent, insurance, taxes and electric bills. Street vendors have few overhead costs, aside from the city permit required to operate.

“[T]he lack of a level playing field hurts our stores at a time when we are still recovering from the pandemic, as well as coping with an epidemic of shoplifting that seriously impacts supermarket and bodega sustainability,” Lipsky wrote in the June 6 email asking for pumped-up enforcement.

The stores, they argue, can’t compete when they’re cherry-picking the best, most popular and profitable items to sell that stores also rely on to stay profitable.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s not easy. And it’s completely unfair that these guys get to skirt the laws,” Steven Sloan, a co-owner of Morton Williams, said of the health code regulations grocery stores must follow. Supermarkets and street vendors fall under two different health codes: The state oversees grocery stores; the city oversees street vendors.

Carlos…