Minneapolis council members are considering permits for street food vendors

Marta came to Minnesota from Ecuador to find a better life for her two children, but recently found herself arguing with a health inspector about why she needed a license to sell empanadas on the streets of Minneapolis.

Her 11-year-old son began to cry, asking why they came to America only to be treated like criminals for selling food on the street.

Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez heard her story during a meeting with about 20 street vendors.

“It was a very emotional meeting,” he said.

Those kind of stories prompted him to propose that the city look at creating a license for these small-scale street vendors, as the number of migrants selling food on streets and sidewalks and in parks has multiplied since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The council voted last week to study licensing the vendors, and possibly expand the number of locations they’re allowed to operate. The report, due in January, will be used to craft an ordinance, with a goal of passage by spring, Chavez said.

Jovita Morales, director of the Minnesota Immigrant Movement, said police are being called on vendors, and alleged that city inspectors have intimated that vendors could be deported if they wind up in jail. City officials disputed that.

Amy Lingo, manager of licenses and consumer services for Community Planning and Economic Development, said no city employee would ever ask about vendors’ immigration status.

“We’ve never once invoked that,” Lingo said. “There have been conversations [about] in order to compel ID you need to have identification, or you could be arrested for that, or if you’re not behaving, or you need to be trespassed. But that’s a different conversation than immigration, and deportation has never been brought to the conversation.”

Hundreds of U.S. cities, including Minneapolis, have declared themselves sanctuaries, where police are discouraged from reporting people’s immigration status unless they are investigating a serious crime.

Marta has sold empanadas and Ecuadorian desserts on Lake Street, usually making $60 to $70 a day to pay her rent and support her children. The 38-year-old woman also sold food on the streets of Ecuador, where migrants have left in record numbers for Minnesota, fleeing poverty and violence. The Fort Snelling immigration court has a backlog of over 13,341 Ecuadorian cases pending, a huge increase since 2018, when there were 344.

Cindy Weckwerth, environmental health director for the Minneapolis Health Department, said in recent months, the city has seen an increase in unlicensed vendors and complaints about them.

Lingo said so far this year, there have been 38 violations and citations for operating a sidewalk food cart without a license; repeat offenders can get cited, which brings a $200 fine.

Inspectors are sometimes accompanied by police officers, Lingo said, because often vendors resist giving their identities and sometimes are uncooperative or are with a large group.

“It can get kind of squirrely with large groups,” CPED director Erik Hansen said.

People can get short-term, seasonal, or food cart permits, but those cost anywhere from $95 for a permit for one event to $940 annually for a food cart. So far, few of the street vendors have gotten licensed, Lingo said.

But there’s no such license that would allow people to sell cups of fruit in the middle of traffic, Lingo said.

“That is not a safe behavior,” she said.

Weckwerth said the city has received a couple of complaints of people getting sick after buying food from street vendors, but there was no way to track down the vendor. At times, inspectors have checked food temperatures and found it in the “danger zone,” she said.

Council members Chavez and Aurin Chowdhury have been working on a way to create new licenses. Chavez wants an equitable fee system, with subsidies to make it affordable and a fee waiver the first year. He wants an ordinance that will “uplift our entrepreneurs” and address any public health concerns.

“I want people to be able to sell fruit without getting the police called on them,” he said.

Marta — who did not want her last name used for fear of retaliation — said about a month ago, someone who said they worked for the health department called and told her to get her documents ready and get a lawyer because she’ll be in trouble with immigration. She has lived in Minneapolis for just over a year while seeking asylum, has racked up hundreds of dollars in fees for selling food without a permit, and has no way to pay them.

On Friday, she was just getting set up to sell food when an inspector showed up and cited her. A video of the encounter shows a police officer standing in the background as Marta frantically tried to explain that she can’t find a job.

Normally, inspectors would give her a letter saying she’ll get a citation in the mail. But this time, she was cited on the scene and had to throw out her food. She said she was overwhelmed by it all, and plans to stop selling food.