April 28, 2019 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
LOCAL
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Immigrant street vendors win settlement
City to give 300 vendors $188K after confi scating and destroying carts in Queens
M train
repainting in
Ridgewood
EARTH DAY TREE PLANTING IN ASTORIA
Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul helped volunteers from One Tree Planted and the city’s Parks Department plant a young sapling
in Astoria on Earth Day, April 22. President of Old Astoria Neighborhood Association Richard Khuzami and NYC Parks Department
Queens Parks Commissioner Michael Dockett were among the guests who also participated. Photo by Dean Moses
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P.S. 376 fi nally gets traffi c signal
Suspect wanted for
robbing F. Hills deli
A VAo Cl.CNG N 8G N Publication Pou. 1b7lication
UPDATED EVERY DAY AT TIMESLEDGER.COM
BY MARK HALLUM
Street vendors in Queens
will see reparations for fines
and destruction of property by
the city Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)
after two years of litigation and a
settlement with activists.
Up to 300 vendors will get paid
out from $188,000 from the city
after a class action lawsuit claimed
the agency had confiscated and
destroyed the carts and stalls of
immigrants who had been issued
violations while selling goods on
the street.
Sanwar Ahmed claims he was
only trying to make his “bread
and butter” when a nearby brickand
mortar business owner
called the police on him resulting
in a violation.
But it went a step further when
the DOHMH confiscated the cart
which Ahmed built with his own
hands and disposed of it.
Ahmed was now left without a
means of income, he said at a rally
in Diversity Plaza in Jackson
Heights on Monday. But with the
settlement, himself and others in
his situation will now get at least
$585 from the city.
Ahmed is an emigre
Bangladesh in his late 80s and
has sold jhal muri on the streets
of Jackson Heights until 2017.
The suit claimed Ahmed was
a licensed city mobile food
vendor when he had his property
taken away.
Ana Buestan was another
immigrant from Ecuador who
sold flavored ices in Brooklyn
for 15 years until she was subject
fines, despite being licensed.
Buestan, like Ahmed, was not
given a voucher of any kind to
claim her cart after it was taken.
But after paying a $1,000 fine,
she was led to believe that the
pushcart was thrown away.
With over a dozen people at
the rally, Matthew Shapiro from
the Street Vendors Project at the
Urban Justice Center called on the
city to recognize the contribution
of vendors to their communities.
BY MAX PARROTT
Members of the New York City
Transit attended a Community
Board 5 transportation services
meeting April 23 to discuss the
Queens phase of their 40-month
plan to give the entire M train a
makeover beginning next week.
The $43 million project will
provide structural steel repair
work and overcoat painting
to the elevated structure of
undergirding the entire train
line, beginning with the Queens
side of the train.
The construction workers
will be based out of a workplace
underneath the M line at
Madison and Woodward Street in
Ridgewood. Their plan is to paint
the elevated structure a new coat
of “forest green” paint, moving
toward Metropolitan Middle
Village Station.
“We anticipate though, at least
being on the Queens side of the M
through the summer. We’ll sort
of see where we end up after the
summer,” said Lucille Songhai,
assistant director of government
BY JENNA BAGCAL
Police are asking for the public’s assistance
in identifying and locating a suspect in a Forest
Hills robbery.
On April 2 at 11:40 p.m., law enforcement
BY JENNA BAGCAL
Two Queens lawmakers
announced that the
intersection near a Bayside
public school will soon be
safer for students.
On Monday, Councilman
Paul Vallone received word
from the Department of
Transportation (DOT) that
the agency will install a
traffic signal in front of
P.S. 376 at the intersection
of 48th Avenue and
211th Street. Prior to the
news, Vallone along with
Assemblywoman Nily Rozic
and members of the P.S. 376
community had embarked
on months-long advocacy
for more traffic safety in
the area.
Vallone’s advocacy for
traffic calming measures
Area in front of P.S. 376 in Bayside. began before the school
Photo via facebook.com/BaysideHills
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/BaysideHills
