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goods earlier this year, and the RIAA has launched a Holiday Blitz campaign to stop the
sale of counterfeit goods this winter.
Upscale clothing and purse companies send out fake shoppers to find vendors where
counterfeit products are sold, then help to organize raids with police.
Comrie said that for consumers, buying counterfeit goods oftentimes means getting a
lesser quality product, and for local businesses, street vendors present added competition.
"It's unfair to the businesses, who are on those commercial strips that have to pay taxes
and keep their businesses clean and pay electric bills and heating bills to attract customers
only to be undercut by someone who is trying to make a quick dollar," Comrie said.
He added that sometimes both workers inside small businesses and vendors outside on
the street are making less than the State's minimum hourly wage of $6.75.
However, Sean Basinski, director of the Street Vendors Project, a non-profit dedicated to
helping the estimated 10,000 street vendors in New York City, said that the new bill could
hurt financially struggling vendors more than it helps.
"Going after vendors is really going after the smallest fish in the pond," Basinski said.
"The City Council should be instead punishing the people who are making millions off of
it and not the poor people who are selling this only because they have to support their
families."
Many street vendors can barely support themselves with their earnings, said Basinski,
who guessed vendors opted to sell counterfeit goods because they can usually fetch
higher prices and better profits. All vendors who sell counterfeit goods are unlicensed, he
said.
"Even if you sell totally legitimate merchandise you are going to be arrested," Basinski
said. "Vendors think that you might as well sell what will make you money in those few
hours that you have to sell before you have to run from the police."
According to a survey of city vendors by the Street Vendors Project, the average vendor
supports 4.2 people with their earnings and receives 6.7 summonses per year.