Unregulated migrants take over the vending business.

0:00 Speaker 1 Thanksgiving week in New York Sunday morning. I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. Well, uh w ABC gets a lot of calls and people are concerned about things happening in the city. This morning we have John murn h and he is responsible for food safety in his company and he has concerns. John Mern, you’re in New York,

0:28 tell me the concerns you have about what’s going on.

0:32 Speaker 2 Well, obviously, you know the New York Post just that did a couple of articles about you know, illegal operations, you know, creating public health concerns and explotise expetit sorry about that exploitation of undocumented workers, and you know, due to that lacked enforcement of the program, it’s creating a situation where people can get sick. I’m sure you’re.

0:56 Speaker 1 Talking about the food stands and you people find in this and the fruit stands and the food stands.

1:03 Speaker 2 Okay, so you have fruit stands on the street, on the street where you that that come into, where no one knows where the produce came from. You have right now, you’ll see a bunch of undocumented workers picking up coolers from a place in Brooklyn, and they pick it up, they transport the food, but they have no way to

1:21 keep the food hot. And what happens is it you know, it creates a major, major opportunity for people who get sick from food borne illnesses.

1:30 Speaker 1 Now, these operations originally for the city, was was done for h retired vents, vets or things like that. Are you saying that it’s no longer uh what it was meant for, in other words, for veterans to have a job, to to have these new stands and to have these uh uh food stands, and now it’s being manned by

2:00 above that in other words, people exploiting migrants.

2:06 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I mean, New York City has fifty two hundred food cart licenses out but probably ten thousand food carts that are out there. So there’s forty eight hundred more food carts that that are out that aren’t paying taxes, aren’t doing you know, chain of command when it comes to food health, wellness and safety.

2:25 And so the people that do follow the rules and do pay for their licenses, such as the vets and people that have been there for many years are getting hurt because they have people that’ll set up in front of them, and since they don’t have to pay sales tax and they don’t have to follow food safety, they’re

2:40 able to sell a product for less money. But the person that’s buying it isn’t going to have any you know, it’s got a very major possibility of becoming insect.

2:49 Speaker 1 This is a fraud because some of my stores we owned Verstitis and Dagostino in New York, we have these fruit stands in front of our stores and they’re not paying rent to anybody. They’re not veterans, they’re just other migrants.

3:06 They’re probably paid off the books that there’s no taxes and no workman’s comp no whatever. So in other words, it needs enforcement because we don’t know how how the food is being handled, whether it’s hot food or or fruit.

3:25 Speaker 2 A perfect example is with your restaurants and fruit. You know, if somebody got sick and let’s just say one of your one of your locations, if they would be able to say where you purchased it from him and literally track it back to the farm in California. Let’s say that’s where the outbreak came from and whatever it is.

3:42 Because you have chain of command on the food in this case, that’s fruit standards in front of You don’t know where they got the food, how it was stored, was it cleaned, you know, what it was sprayed with.

3:52 You don’t know any of the different things to go along with it. And that’s the same that’s going on right now with the company with the Juweys, a Brooklyn restaurant that was shut down multiple time for health code violations, but yet they’re up the next day and they’re sending out, you know, one hundred different illegal workers.

4:10 Speaker 1 So it’s time for the district attorneys, whether it’s Brooklyn, whether it’s Manhattan, to go to work at it. Because if there’s a massive fraud going on and it’s on these fruit stands or on these hot food stands and somebody gets sick, who do you sue?

4:28 Speaker 2 One hundred percent agree with that, and look, it was refreshing. My understanding is that the governor mentioned yesterday that you know, some people that are here and there operating illegally, they’re going to be you know, moved out. And that’s the best thing that can happen because it allows the people that are paying taxes. I’m sure you pay more than

4:45 more than a more than the summer zero for the rents in your place.

4:48 Speaker 1 And let me tell you something, Ristities and Daeguistino is not making money right now because of what’s happening in our cities and and everything is tight is under lock and key because it’s being stolen, and sales are down because people don’t want to wait twenty minutes for the pluck to get to a box, you know, thing of

5:09 kocate toothpaste out of the out of the cage.

5:15 Speaker 2 I couldn’t, you couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t be better, well said, I mean the concern is again, you know, and now you have congestion pricing going on to see it’s just making more expensive. And the bottom line is we have to have enforcement and enforcement to make sure that the people that are servicing well.

5:30 Speaker 1 If you have specifics, let me refer it to the local district, send it to us. W ABC will refer it to the local district attorney’s offices and we’ll start there.

5:42 Speaker 2 I think that’s an ideal that that’s just an ideal way to way to go.

5:46 Speaker 1 John marn I hope, thank you for doing your duty to God and your city. Usually I say God in your country, but our city is part of our country. And scared us the information and we will look into it.

6:01 Speaker 2 Thank you for taking my time.

6:02 Speaker 1 Thank you so

6:03 Speaker 2 Much, Have a great weekend.