I spent the week hopping on and off trains getting reactions for my podcast. I wanted to interview food vendors, store owners and customers on what they thought about the proposed bill to increase the number of licensed food carts from 3,100 to 25,000. I thought it would be a fairly simple mission – after all, there are food carts everywhere and people buying food from them.
It was more challenging than I thought it would be. I went from St Mark’s to 34th Street to Bryant Park to Washington Square Park to Union Square. Sure, there were lots of food carts but the thick swell of people and tourists made it difficult to stop someone while they were midway through a hotdog and get them to answer a question. As for the food cart vendors, many of them were immediately suspicious when I drew out my recorder and did not want to be interviewed. Many also did not speak much English, making it a no-go for me. As for the ones who agreed to talk to me, I had to be sensitive to the fact that they were carrying out a busines, and time was money to them, so I had to back off whenever there was a customer. Keeping in mind that this was a podcast and sounds were important, I was super conscious about trying to get the appropriate background noises – like the sizzling of cooking meat, the ka-ching of the cash register, or the tossing of nuts around a stove.
Overall, I talked to maybe 10-12 people, and I think I got a good mix of reactions from a variety of stakeholders in any regulation change. I got a cute little kid who told me “Why are there so many pretzel stands? There should be a MacDonalds stand.” And other tourists who say enough of hot dogs, more variety please. Then there are the store owners who not surprisingly said an increase in the food carts would hurt their business and be unfair to them since they had to pay higher taxes. And then there were the food cart vendors, who did not like the increase too. Sam, the chicken-and-rice man on 35th Street and 6th Ave told me: “Do you know that people would kill if their spot was stolen by another vendor?” And there was Archilles in Union Square along 13th street selling pretzels who said the competition didn’t make sense. Pointing out the five other vendors operating on the same street as him, he said any regulation change to increase the number of food vendors would be disastrous. Right now, I’m considering whether I should interview more people, perhaps get the Health Department stance and more voices from business owners. But I think I’ve got a good mix of reactions from the street already, which is what the podcast is meant to be about.
Anyway, my takeaway from this whole experience is the situation is infinitely more complicated then my initial hypothesis. My thinking that it would be beneficial to increase the number of food cart licenses if many are already operating illegally seems simplistic. The hungry horde of tourists would not be any happier if all they are greeted with is another hotdog/pretzel/nut stand. And besides the impact on the nearby store owner, the existing food cart owner also hurts from the increased competition on the street. Not that they aren’t already griping about the influx of people who are cooking the same fare as they are. Is better regulation of the street in order from the city? How many food vendors is enough? There is obviously a problem on the streets, and a blanket increase in the number of licenses will not solve it.
With all this in mind, I plan to work on my podcast tomorrow. It’ll be interesting writing a script for it – I suppose writing for radio/a podcast means I have to keep it really simple in terms of the language and the structure. It should be fun experimenting with editing the various voices I have in my i-pod, and combining them in a coherent flow. One caveat though, I don’t like the sound of my own voice too much. I think it sounds too squeaky! In any case, mental note in recording my voice: Do lots of jumping jacks in the morning!
