Street vendors will soon have to pay to operate in NoDa

CHARLOTTE, NC – Street vendors in the NoDa neighborhood will soon have to pay a fee and get a permit to operate. Charlotte City Council plans to vote on a pilot program to expand the areas where street vendors need a permit to sell goods soon.

Blu has been selling jewelry and clothes on the streets of NoDa and Plaza Midwood for at least four years.

“It’s just very important for me. This is my livelihood,” Blu said. “It gives me the opportunity to not work a traditional 9 to 5.”

Up until now, street vendors like Blu could set up anywhere outside of the “Congested Business District” in uptown Charlotte with no permit required. City council is now considering a new policy that would expand the area where sellers need permits. The new policy would also designate specific areas for vending. More than 200 people signed a change.org petition against this proposed permitting process.

“That sucks, they can’t be able to provide or, make money just off of that one little hump when everything was just cool, but now you’re putting restrictions,” Blu said.

NoDa neighbors and business owners asked council for a new policy because of safety concerns. City staff showed council pictures of vendors blocking the fire station and bus stop in NoDa.

“NoDa has very narrow sidewalks and lots of legacy infrastructure that really just can’t substantiate all of the additional street vending activity,” Councilmember Dante Anderson who represents District 1 which includes NoDa and Uptown said.

Some business owners also have concerns about competition with street vendors.

“I even said myself that I didn’t want to be a brick and mortar and come outside and there’s a juice stand in front of my store, but at the same time, I don’t want the juice stand to go out of business,” Councilmember Tiawana Brown representing District 3 said.

Right now, vendors pay $175 for a yearly permit to operate inside the “Congested Business District”, but the price is going up to $350 next fiscal year. Some council members are concerned about the increase.

“We have to put a human hand and a big heart over this so that the humans that we’re going to sweep up in the process don’t get annihilated as a result,” Councilmember Majorie Molina representing District 5 said.

Blu believes some regulations might be helpful to vendors, but says permits could create barriers.

“I do believe that it should be something, but a permit. I think that’s going too far,” Blu said.

City Manager Marcus Jones expressed his concerns about having the staff to enforce the new regulations.

“The same people that are doing their jobs today are going to do a different job with no additional resources to do the pilot,” Jones said. “We’re going to have some skinned knees and bruised elbows even mid July. We’ve got a bunch of examples of things like this that have gone not so right in Charlotte.”

Right now, the fine for violating the street vendor code is a fine up to $50. City staff analyzed fines from 21 cities and 19 cities had higher fines than Charlotte.

“We have to have some structure and teeth into how vendors interact with our community,” Councilmember Anderson said. “I just want to make sure that we’re it’s not from a criminal perspective where there’s no criminal element to this.”

City council is asking staff to come up with a plan to address the concerns and they hope to implement a new policy before the end of the summer.