Snack Vendor Evicted Over Huge Rent Bill

[DainBramaged]

Homeowners aren't the only ones in hot water over overpriced real estate. A New York City hot dog vendor has been evicted from his prize spot outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art because he couldn't pay a whopping rent bill of nearly $54,000 a month.


Snack cart owner Pasang Sherpa of Queens had a deal with the city's parks department that required him to pay almost $643,000 per year for the vending rights near the museum steps.
He says he was $310,000 behind on his payments when he was evicted.
The Parks Department had auctioned off the rights to the spot last year

http://news.aol.com/article/new-york-hot-dog-vendor-pasang-sherpa/608894

Well, if he was only $310,000 behind on his rent, how much did he make? He isn't selling dogs for a buck.


NYC, setting the pace for greed everywhere

[salvorhardin]

1. At $8 a wiener

He would have had to have sold 6,695 wieners a month just to pay his rent.

Another way of looking at it, if the average order was $15, it would mean 3,571 orders monthly to pay the rent.

Fortunately, the guy was offered a job selling for another vendor.

But another museum row hot dog vendor, Dan Rossi, said Sherpa can sell dogs at one of his carts.

"He's gonna work for me now," said Rossi. "Nobody's gonna touch him now without talking to me."

"The guy was crying. They pushed him out," Rossi said.

"Yeah, I'll work for him now," Sherpa said yesterday. "It's better than nothing."

"Last night I couldn't sleep," he said. "I've got kids who have to go to college. I don't know what I'm going to do."
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/08/09/2009-08-09_hot_dog_vendor_booted_by_met_lands_new_gig.html

That article also gives some dim insight into his pricing.

"As soon as they pulled Sherpa's cart out yesterday, all these guys just pulled in. The city has to enforce the law," said Rossi.

These unlicensed dealers offer dogs and drinks for less money than the legit businessmen, whose prices are set by the Parks Department.

"I sell water for $2 and the others sell it for $1," he said. "If I charged $10 a hot dog maybe I could compete."

Also, the original article in the Daily News seems to indicate the City is seriously overcharging for the vending licenses.

A worker at one of the carts who was hanging up his tongs Friday night said it brought in just $1,000 to $1,500 a day - not enough to cover the sky-high rent.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/08/08/2009-08-08_hot_dog_heartache.html

[DainBramaged]

6. The city is going after him for the other $140,000, scumbags

after seizing the performance bonds

[Deja Q]

2. With wages dropping, he's got to lower his costs too.

Unfortunately, what is going down and what isn't -- and I am not referring to hot dogs.

[Stephanie]

3. Amazing!

I live in NYC and I had no idea.

[Cassandra]

4. This was the first time I'd ever heard of...

a vendor paying rent for a spot on the sidewalk. According to some comments on the Daily News site, the vendor had put in the highest bid for that spot. I find the amount ridiculous but apparently that's what he'd bid.

And this from HuffPo comments:
Well, for what it's worth: they're not carts, they're catering trucks. He has two of them, one on the north side of the entrance and one on the south (thus he only needs to make $1000 or so per truck per day). He thought the north one would do better because it would catch people on their way to the Lexington Ave subway, but construction on that part of the street from October to May severely cut into his business.
And nobody forced him to pay that kind of rent, he won the rights to the location at an auction.


The construction really has made a mess of even getting into the museum.

[salvorhardin]

5. It was also interesting that he had $170,000 in bonds

There were accusations of Asian cartels outbidding the regular vendors. I wonder if there's any truth to that or if it's just racist xenophobia?