A year after the passage of the Street Vendor Advancement Amendment Act, several street vendors, specifically those who prepare and sell home cooked meals, are still unable to legally pursue their business endeavors on District streets.
Some vendors, like Reyna Sosa, place the blame with DC Health for not adhering to legislation that mandates implementation of emergency food safety regulations that paves the way for vendors receiving a microenterprise home kitchen business permit, and ultimately their vending license.
Sosa told The Informer that, without those regulations, she and other vendors can’t navigate the licensing process as outlined in the Street Vendor Advancement Amendment Act.
“I want to get a license, but [the process] is not clear,” Sosa told The Informer with the help of a translator. “I know DC Health isn’t following the law. They have to come out with these regulations for us to vend.”
In early April, DC Health personnel issued a cease-and-desist order for Sosa and others who sell food on 14th Street and Irving Street in Northwest. Weeks later, Sosa continues to post up on that corner out of what she calls economic necessity. All the while, she hasn’t let up on her demand that DC Health implements emergency regulations, accepts vendors’ food safety plans and provides translation support for vendors lacking a strong command of the English language.
Without any of the aforementioned, Sosa said that DC Health, and the D.C. government as a whole, continues to perpetuate discriminatory practices she’s experienced in the years since she set up shop in Columbia Heights.
“During all those 12 years, there were periods of assault and mistreatment by police,” Sosa told The Informer.
Run-ins with the law became expensive and sometimes escalated to handcuffs.
“I received thousands of dollars for many different tickets,” she continued. “[My business] was taken away and I was arrested for selling mangos and taquitos to support my children. Is it really a crime to be street vending? The answer has always been no and should still be no.”
Columbia Heights Food Vendors Continue to Hold Down Their Block
Between the first and second reading of the Street Vendor Advancement Amendment Act last year, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) crafted an amendment in the nature of a substitute that created a new licensing category for vendors who sell home prepared food.
Per the legislation, DC Health should have had the regulations for what’s known as microenterprise home kitchen business permits finalized by November 16, 2023. More than a year later, that hasn’t been the case.
DC Health officials who testified before the council’s Committee on Health on April 12 told Henderson that food handling regulations for street vendors have been compiled and are currently under review with D.C. Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs.
In speaking about DC Health’s recent engagement with street vendors, they said that they responded to complaints about vendors selling food on the street with an open flame — which they said violates D.C. health regulations.
The street vendors, they said, received a cease-and-desist order, and not a fine. Officials told Henderson that conversations about a fine happened between the vendors and a DC Health representative to whom they inquired on the phone about penalties for selling goods without a license.
DC Health Director Dr. Ayanna Bennett noted that, even with a microenterprise home kitchen business permitting process, D.C. health code regulations still stand.
“There won’t be any relaxation in that realm, and we do want people to be able to have their business legally,” she said.
Bennett emphasized instructing the vendors about food safety and health is key.
“Part of that is educating them about how to do the food preparation in a way that prevents 20 people from getting food poisoning on the street,” she added. “But that’s going to take some time, even after the licensing process. What was happening was not legal and will never be legal.”
Meanwhile, Latino street vendors on 14th Street and Irving Street in Northwest continue to express their frustration with their precarious status.
Ana Lemus said her recent encounter with DC Health brought back memories of her daughter, Genesis Lemus, suffering a significant knee injury when D.C. police officers tried to shut down their business in 2019.
Genesis, then 14 years old, was with her brother selling plantain chips and corn atole at the vending table her mother set up for the family near 14th Street and Irving Street in Northwest. Lemus said, years later, Genesis continues to reel from that experience.
“My daughter is going through hardship and depression,” Lemus said. “She hasn’t recovered from that attack from the police. We’re tired of this happening.”
Even as Lemus continues to soldier on with pupusas, tacos, fruits and an assortment of other delicacies, she still faces hurdles. As she recounted, DC Health officials told her during the earlier part of April that she could no longer sell pupusas because she was using a Sterno food warmer.
She told The Informer about similar pressure she receives from the D.C. Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DCLP) to cease operation until she gets her license. Without a microenterprise home kitchen business permit however, she and others are unable to get to that point, Lemus said.
“The last time the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection came, they said the same thing the police said, that we have to stop vending. We’re really tired of this,” Lemus said. “We want to make sure that the government does its job to give us the licenses that we want and deserve. We want them to leave us until we can get our license. Telling us to stop working is fatal.”
An Attorney Provides Legal, Historical Context
Geoff Gilbert, a legal and technical assistance director for Beloved Community Incubator (BCI), a solidarity economy movement organization that assists with paying vendor fees, purchasing equipment, and completing registration forms, said that DC Health’s failure to meet an emergency deadline highlights the agency’s apprehension around allowing the sale of home cooked foods.
This apprehension, Gilbert said, goes back to the council’s passage of the Cottage Food Amendment Act of 2013.
While the legislation allowed cottage food businesses to sell food they prepare in their kitchens to consumers, Gilbert said that DC Health used the “broad discretion” granted by the D.C. Council to narrowly define the cottage food law rather than support businesses in preparing home cooked food in compliance with food safety practices.
Gilbert also said that DC Health has a penchant for not publicizing the food and preparation methods allowed under the old street vending laws which he said placed elements of the registration process behind closed doors.
Such a history, he said, raised doubts about DC Health’s ability to follow the law.
“As of last month, D.C. will be five months behind,” Gilbert said. “It will take a few months from when DC Health publishes the regulations for this new permit to be in place and vendors to receive inspections to operate from their home kitchens.”
On April 9, Gilbert testified before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Health in solidarity with street vendors who patiently await DC Health’s new street vending regulations and more clarity around the application process for a microenterprise home kitchen business permit.
He counts among those who are eager for full implementation of the Street Vendor Advancement Amendment Act, particularly Henderson’s provision requiring vendors to register with DC Health, submit documentation detailing how food will be stored, handled, and prepared, and undergo inspection of their home kitchen space before obtaining their microenterprise home kitchen business permit.
“Vendors can use this new process that we fought for together and won to force DC Health to respond to vendors whether their processes for preparing food on the street are safe or not,” Gilbert said.
He explained how vendors are able to use the legislation to their benefits both legally and economically.
“This new process allows them to submit food safety plans using cost-effective equipment and push DC Health to accept plans that are not reliant on expensive equipment,” he said. “The new law requires that if they don’t accept it, they have to tell them in writing. Just to be clear, it has to be a food safety reason and be clear that food safety can’t just be done with expensive equipment.”
For Many, an Expensive and Labyrinthic Process
As Wayne Goodwin awaits the release of the DC Health emergency regulations, he’s navigating the application process for a mobile vending permit that he said would allow him to prepare meals outside, and ultimately bounce back from housing insecurity, medical issues and grief that has plagued him for several months.
Since October, Goodwin has engaged DC Health, DCLP, and D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services personnel on four occasions in the pursuit of this permit. Though he anticipates the process wrapping up within the next week, he admitted there’s really no telling.
“The whole process held me back from getting money,” Goodwin said.
Goodwin, co-founder of soul food eatery Smoke N Munch, suffers from epilepsy. An episode during the latter part of last year hospitalized him and forced him to stop operating Smoke N Munch, a business that he and his mother launched years prior.
For Goodwin, time’s of the essence as he works to establish a presence in Woodley Park, a community that Black Washingtonians are increasingly frequenting. He said that the revenue he generates from vending in that area will help him expand, and return to his old stomping grounds near Anacostia Metro Station in Southeast.
In 2021, Goodwin and his mother set up their mobile cart, equipped with a deep fryer and grill, outside of Anacostia Metro Station. They initially sold grilled hot dogs. Soon after, they developed their soul food menu, which included fried fish, wings, yams, and mac and cheese.
Before the destruction of their mobile cart in 2022 forced them to relocate their operations to Columbia Heights, Goodwin and his mother established a strong presence in Southeast. Smoke N Munch patrons had a chance to enjoy these delicacies at the Goodman League.
Smoke N Munch also collaborated with D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, and local nonprofit GOODProjects along with T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project, Deserving Children, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, Restaurant Opportunities Center of D.C., and D.C. Jobs with Justice.
Goodwin said that a mobile vending permit, along with a microenterprise home kitchen business permit, would set him and his mother for a return to Southeast, and what he described as their eventual transition into a storefront and engine of economic development.
“What I’m doing is not self-centered. It’s about us getting as much opportunity as we can,” Goodwin said. “It’s an opening opportunity for the youth to change. It’s the only way that I would be able to minimize [the violence] that’s going on.”
Other vendors, like Khassay Ghebrebrhan, who are on a similar path say that the licensing process lacks clarity.
Ghebrebrhan, a vendor of nearly 30 years, is currently in the throes of a license renewal process that’s taking him between DC Health and DCLP. Both agencies, he said, won’t move along his license renewal until the other office provides required material.
“I’m not back at work because there’s too much bureaucracy,” Ghebrebrhan told The Informer.
For decades, Ghebrebrhan, an Ethiopian father of three who lives in Northwest, sold half smokes and hot dogs in a food cart next to D.C. Superior Court, regardless of the weather.
That work stopped during the pandemic when he stayed home. However, the District continued to charge him the minimal quarterly sales tax of $375 until his license expired during the latter part of 2022.
These days, Ghebrebrhan and other Amharic-speaking vendors are navigating what they call a convoluted registration process with the help of Beloved Community Incubator.
Earlier this month, the group visited DC Health’s Anacostia headquarters with BCI street vending implementation coordinator Dekima Thomas to gain clarity about the license renewal process. Ghebrebrhan said that endeavor proved unsuccessful because DC Health officials didn’t have an Amharic language interpreter on the premises.
Ghebrebrhan also revealed that staffers threatened him and other Amharic speakers, as well as other vendors working with BCI, with fines and street sweeps during their visit.
“We spent all day at DC Health and they wasted our time,” Ghebrebrhan said. “I’ve been a street vendor for half of my life and I’ve been a D.C. resident for a long time. Why don’t they respect us?”