Canal Street ICE raids weren't pretty - but something must be done to clean up a promising NYC block

"The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on Canal Street was not a pretty sight. If President Trump wants to ensure Zohran Mamdani's election so he can "take over" the city, as he's warned, he couldn't come up with a spectacle more certain to drive liberal New Yorkers into Mamdani's camp than a squad of masked ICE agents, accompanied by an armored vehicle, descending on unlicensed street vendors in broad daylight to bust a whopping dozen or so for peddling counterfeit goods."

"But unlike agitators who screamed "Fascist!" at the agents, our emotions should be nuanced. With City Hall unable or unwilling to protect legitimate Canal Street businesses and the public from the scourge of unlicensed sidewalk merchants, somebody had to do the job or at least begin to - even if the optics were terrible and the results minuscule. The cheap wooden animals, "I ❤️ New York" caps and bogus Gucci and Cartier products - and the guys who sell them - have Canal in a stranglehold."

"Imagine how much worse it would be if misdemeanor-friendly Mamdani gave the hustlers even more free rein than they already enjoy! Developers began buying up small Canal Street properties a few years ago with plans to tear them down and put up modern new buildings. One owner told me in 2017, "Canal is in significant flux." But that was before "bail reform," "Raise the Age" and legions of leftist judges and elected officials made prosecution of most crimes short of murder ineffectual."

An ICE raid on Canal Street illustrated a visible enforcement response to rampant unlicensed vending that has choked legitimate commerce. City Hall has proven unable or unwilling to control unlicensed sidewalk merchants, leaving business owners and the public exposed to counterfeit sales and chaotic street conditions. The western stretch of Canal Street is dominated by cheap souvenirs, knockoff luxury goods and aggressive peddlers that stalled a budding redevelopment. Policy changes like bail reform and Raise the Age, combined with sympathetic judges and elected officials, have weakened misdemeanor prosecutions and contributed to a climate that scared off potential retail tenants and developers.

Read at New York Post