Closed for the holidays
Council bans street vendors plaguing ‘Dyker Lights’ homes
BY ELISSA ESHER
Christmas came early for
Dyker Heights residents!
City Council passed legislation
banning food vendors
from slinging grub on
Dyker Heights streets during
the chaotic holiday season
— when the neighborhood’s
famed Christmas light displays
attract thousands of
tourists to the area each
year, according to the area’s
local councilman.
“Dyker Heights lights
started out as a local neighborhood
tradition and turned
into an attraction that tourists
from all over the world
come to visit,” said Justin
Brannan. “While homeowners
are proud of this tradition,
issues like overfl owing
garbage cans, litter all over
the street, and exhaust fumes
from an ice cream truck
idling outside their house for
12 hours aday, are just not acceptable.”
Dyker residents have
decked out their homes in
luminous holiday raiments
since the 1980s, wreathing
their homes in endless garlands
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of Christmas lights
and whole platoons of radiant
nut-cracker soldiers.
The neighborhood’s beloved
holiday tradition lured
a whopping 100,000 visitors
from around the world last
year — and residents have
long complained about quality
of-life issues posed by
‘Dyker Lights’ tour buses
hogging parking in the neighborhood,
blocking driveways,
strewing garbage throughout
the area, and blasting music
at all hours.
And as the lights drew
in the tourists, the tourists
attracted a small army of
sidewalk vendors and food
trucks, which inhabit the
area surrounding the lights
displays for weeks on end,
turning the holiday season
into a yuletide pain in the
butt, according to one local
civic guru.
“The vendors were making
our small neighborhood
feel like a 40-day street festival,”
said Josephine Beckmann,
District Manager of
Community Board 10. “Can
you imagine living in that?
Ultimately, this is a place
where people live.”
Brannan’s new law is the
culmination of several years
of lobbying by local residents,
who protested the safety hazards,
blocked sidewalks, engine
noise, and litter generated
by the food trucks, according
to Beckman.
In a recent community
board survey, 99 percent of locals
said their lives had been
disrupted in various ways by
vendors, said Beckmann.
“In January 2017 a woman
came to my offi ce literally crying
for help with this issue,”
she said. “It was never a matter
of ‘if’ we get the bill passed —
but when.”
And hungry tourists will
still be able to get their fi ll, according
to Beckmann, who said
that most tour buses include
stops at local restaurants and
bakeries as part of the visit.
“I look forward to sidewalks
that are clear for safe
pedestrian passage in the
prime viewing area, and for
homeowners not to have to
deal with trash left on the
streets anymore,” said Beckmann.
“Residents are so
grateful to see the end of this
disruption to the quality of
life in their homes.”
Notoriously crowded Christmas lights display in Dyker Heights.
Photo by Stefano Giovannini
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