Food vendor advocates decry Flatbush arrests

After the police arrested four street vendors in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, protestors hit the streets yesterday, arguing that the police mishandle and mistreat food cart owners. The move comes on the heels of long-term unrest in the food vendor community in Flatbush. Different vendors had been fighting over prices for months, according to the New York Times, while area residents complained about the vendors’ presence in their neighborhood. Police maintain that the vendors in question not only blocked pedestrian traffic, but caused unrest in the areas they occupied. Even so, the Street Vendor Project, a non-profit group that advocates for street vendors’ rights in the city, said that the latest arrests are another example of the police department’s prejudicial treatment against food cart owners.