By Marco Shalma

Here’s the part people don’t want to hear. If you get sick from an unlicensed vendor in New York City, you’re screwed. There is no hotline. No investigation. No inspector showing up with a clipboard. You’re either toughing it out at home or in an ER with an IV drip, and nobody’s taking responsibility. Not the vendor. Not the city. Not your insurance. Not a single agency is required to follow up.

Why? Because the vendor isn’t registered. That’s the whole story.

NYC froze mobile food vending permits in 1983 at around 3,000, while the city now has 20,000+ active vendors. The majority are automatically “unlicensed” because the city never expanded the program to match population or demand. They aren’t in the Health Department database, so the Health Department has no legal mechanism to respond to a complaint. You can call 311 but the case goes nowhere. Bureaucratically, the vendor doesn’t exist.