8 THE QUEENS COURIER • APRIL 25, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Queens street vendors settle with city over cart damage case
BY MARK HALLUM
mhallum@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Street vendors in Queens will see reparations
‘Happy endings’ land Jackson Hts. spa boss in slammer
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@qns.com
@robbpoz
A Jackson Heights spa manager is
accused of coercing one of his female
workers into prostituting herself for clients
seeking more than just a massage,
according to prosecutors.
Vajira Jayatunge, 50, of 114th Street
in South Richmond Hill faced a Queens
Criminal Court judge on April 19 to
answer to a 10-count indictment
charging him with sex traffi cking, promoting
prostitution, forcible touching
and third-degree sexual abuse.
Jayatunge manages the Nishu Salon
and Spa located at 37-43 76th St. in
Jackson Heights. According to Chief
Assistant District Attorney John Ryan,
he allegedly forced a 36-year-old woman
whom he hired last year into performing
various sex acts — including masturbation,
oral sex and intercourse — on the
clients she serviced.
Members of the NYPD Vice
Enforcement Team raided Nishu Salon
and Spa on April 18; 12 women worked
at the establishment, prosecutors noted.
“Using threats and intimidation, the
defendant in this case is accused of
coercing a female worker to perform various
sex acts on clients seeking massages
with ‘happy endings,’” Ryan said. “Th e
defendant allegedly profi ted from these
added services by pocketing the money
himself. Th is is sex traffi cking and those
who force women into prostitution will
fi nd themselves facing incarceration.”
According to prosecutors, Jayatunge
hired the 38-year-old woman last May
aft er an employment agency referred her
to the spa. While undergoing training on
how to perform massages, he allegedly
forced her into stripping and touched her
breast, inner thigh and genitalia.
Up until February of this year, law
enforcement sources said, Jayatunge
allegedly induced her into performing
sex acts on clients who came to the spa,
and pocketed the money she received in
return.
When she tried to stop trading sex for
money, authorities said, she began receiving
threats via text messages. Jayatunge
allegedly also threatened to tell her family
about her work and have her deported.
Jayatunge was ordered held on
$200,000 bail and to surrender his passport.
He’s due back in court on May 1,
and faces up to 25 years behind bars if
convicted, Ryan added.
for fi nes and destruction of property
by the city Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) aft er two years
of litigation and a settlement with activists.
Up to 300 vendors will get paid out from
$188,000 from the city aft er a class action
lawsuit claimed the agency had confi scated
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 brick-and-mortar business owner
called the police on him resulting in a violation.
But it went a step further when the
DOHMH confi scated 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. Th e
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 fl avored ices in
Brooklyn for 15 years until she was subject
fi nes, despite being licensed.
Buestan, like Ahmed, was not given a
voucher of any kind to claim her cart aft er
it was taken. But aft er paying a $1,000 fi ne,
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.
“We fi led this case because we heard
about this situation and we had always
heard about enforcement actions being
taken throughout the city where vendors
had carts they had made themselves taken
by the police or the DOHMH and then
thrown in the garbage,” Shapiro said. “We
don’t think the city should ever do such
harsh enforcement action against vendors;
they should be respecting them as small
businesses. Sometimes they do seize people’s
property when there are violations,
but there’s supposed to be a real legal process
that happens.”
Shapiro said the city defended this action
by calling the property “makeshift ” with no
real value, although the value to the vendors
may have been substantial.
Kazi Fouzia is an organizer with Desis
Rising Up and Moving who took a lead
role in the class action lawsuit and said she
was once a street vendor and understands
how city policies leave street vendors in a
no-win situation.
DRUM and the Street Vendors Project
called on the city to make policy changes
that will help people capitalize on their ability
to sell goods on the street rather than
getting reprimanded aft er the fact.
Th e city oft en issues citations to vendors
working without a permit of up to $1,000
while a cap was put on new permits back
in the 1980s. In order to obtain a permit,
people are oft en forced to buy out vendors
who have had theirs for decades for up to
$20,000, Buestan said.
Photo via Google Maps
The exterior of Nishu Salon and Spa in Jackson Heights
Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
Street vendor Sanwar Ahmed speaks during an April 22 press conference in Jackson Heights.
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