TNJ - February 2002 - Feature Story - African Americans Overlook HIV-Related Anemia By Katherine K. Williams

April 2002

The Flatbush Vendor Mart:
A New Concept

A new vendor mart in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn aims at making the vendors store owners.

By Carmen Brown

With the official opening of the 61-booth Flatbush Vendor Mart in January, an era ended for vendors who usually plied their wares along one of Brooklyn’s busiest thoroughfares. No longer do vendors have to brave the bitter elements of cold, rain and sleet in an effort to make a sale and earn a living, but they must now interact with clients from within the confines of enclosed booths, spread out in a large, colorful $1.6 million vendor mart, strategically located at the corner of Caton and Flatbush Avenues.

Potential vendors, many of whom hail from the Caribbean and Africa, are recruited from a group of long-standing street sellers who belong to the 40th council district, and have taken the city’s training course. The recruits are required to have vendor-identification cards and be on a waiting list for a while. Once selected, each vendor sells items for a 17-month period after which a new batch of vendors will take over the booths. To reduce competition, each vendor must sell specific items such as handcrafts, hats, beauty products and clothing.

The mart is the brainchild of former City Councilwoman Una Clarke, an immigrant from Jamaica who pledged years ago to assist her constituents by creating a site from which the vendors could sell comfortably without inciting the anger of local storeowners or being punished by the police for having their wares seized. Clarke, one of 36 council members to lose her job when her term expired, left office exactly one week before the mart opened its doors. Her daughter, Yvette, now represents the 40th district that she served. Clarke was inspired to act because “vendors would come to my office asking me for help after their merchandise was taken away in a police sweep.”

With help from the city of New York’s Department of Business Services, the necessary funds were set aside for the mart’s creation.

“We have a one-year operating budget of $395,000. The funds will be used for staffing, security, insurance and maintenance,” said Roy Hastick, president of the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CACCI), the organization responsible for running the mart. “Our job is to oversee the day-to-day operation, hire staff, ensure security and maintenance and select the vendors in conjunction with the Department of Business Services.”

“The site of the mart was originally a parking lot,” said Fred Leopold-Hooke of Sierra Leone who is director of the Vendor Initiative Division in the city of New York’s Department of Business Services. “At first, the vendors sold from little kiosks in the lot and paid the city $8.00 per day. Now they pay $25 per day, have heat, air-conditioning and restrooms so that they can work seven days each week if they choose. The vendors are screened and we use an alternative concept in which they can earn their living legally.”

Applauding Clarke’s tireless efforts to make the mart a reality, Leopold-Hooke said: “The 17-month period given to each vendor came from Clarke’s attempts to prevent what happened at Mart 125 in Harlem where vendors moved in without making preparations to leave.”

According to Leopold-Hooke, establishing limits is a matter of economics because the city does not have the money to subsidize the enterprises. He said that’s why vendors will pay $25 a day and have to leave after a short time.
“But we will help them to succeed by running radio ads on major holidays to promote the mart,” Leopold-Hooke said.

“The overall aim is to ensure that the new breed of entrepreneurs leave the mart and open stores,’ Hastick said. “The purpose of the mart is to create a micro-enterprise in a sense.”

Hastick said that Clarke’s idea was to get the people off the street and give them the tools, training and support to run a business and to give them the resources to operate as entrepreneurs. He said the mart represents a win-win situation for the vendors because they will have the opportunity to attract regular customers.

“We are working with the city and academic institutions to conduct seminars so that entrepreneurs can learn about pricing, marketing, advertising, managing and operating a business in New York City to empower themselves to run a business in the future,” Hastick said.

In spite of these lofty goals, there are compelling concerns about a lack of adequate storage area because vendors have to take their wares home with them after work.
“The storage might be a problem but we are looking forward to having a container so that the vendors can store their items in their booths at night,” said Hastick.
“What we are trying to do with the mart is to stretch out the available dollars in order to achieve the most attainable goals first and then work on such other problems as storage.”
Leopold-Hooke likened the new initiative with the mart to planting a seed, watering it and nurturing it until it becomes a tree. No entrepreneur can expect to start a business and have everything all at once.

Send a Network Journal Greeting Card With Music to a loved one or friend. In preparing to celebrate Black History Month (February) here in America, the theme of our greeting cards for the next two months will feature famous people of color from the last century.

The music to accompany the cards are Motown and Reggae songs.