City Poised to Enact Regulations on Street Vending in Charlotte

Two years after a shooting in NoDa brought issues between NoDa business owners and street vendors to a head, city staff has begun taking preliminary steps in addressing the issue, with Charlotte City Council expected to decide on regulating the practice sometime this summer. 

Spurred by a mayor’s referral in April, city staff presented its findings to the council’s Housing, Safety and Community Committee (HSCC) on May 5, followed by a public input section on May 22 then another committee discussion on June 2. 

During these meetings, members of the HSCC recommended that a number of changes be brought in front of the full Charlotte City Council for a vote, including implementing a new ordinance that would make street vending illegal citywide without a permit while increasing fees for violating that ordinance. 

Street vending is fully legal in most parts of the city today, as it only requires a permit in areas known as Congested Business Districts (CBDs). Because the current ordinance hasn’t been updated since the 1980s, those CBDs are antiquated, as they include Uptown, the area surrounding Memorial Stadium and the area that once surrounded the Hornets Coliseum on Remount Road. 

There are currently 15 vendors permitted to operate in the Uptown area, though they have recently raised concerns over unpermitted vendors working in the area. Violations of the current ordinances can result in varying levels of fines ranging from $10-$50, though that is only in the designated CBDs. 

As it stood following the HSCC’s June meeting, the city appeared poised to regulate street vending in NoDa, either through an outright ban or designating the neighborhood as a CBD and issuing of a limited number of permits for occupying designated spaces in the neighborhood.

Council rep and HSCC member Renee Johnson suggested the city explore requiring a permit for street vending anywhere in city limits. 

“I think that’s a standard that any entrepreneur would expect, it holds them accountable and it raises the bar,” Johnson said. 

However, some business owners don’t believe that measure would go far enough in NoDa, insisting that the narrow sidewalks along North Davidson Street make it impossible for street vendors and business owners to coexist in the neighborhood. 

Others believe street vendors add to the atmosphere of the neighborhood and are being unfairly targeted by those who oppose them. 

A problem presents itself

Some NoDa business owners began speaking out publicly in 2023 about what they described as increased aggression from street vendors that summer, citing a shooting that occurred during a busy Friday evening on June 23.

According to witnesses, a fight broke out that day between vendors and quickly escalated from fists to tools to knives to guns. After one subject was shot, he reportedly stumbled into Growlers Pourhouse, followed by the suspect, who assaulted him again before shooting him two more times.

Read more: NoDa Street Vendors React to Newly Proposed Permitting Process (2023)

Business owners spoke about being threatened by vendors, some of whom allegedly retaliated repeatedly against them any time the police were called.

During its September 2023 meeting, the NoDa Neighborhood & Business Association presented a drafted letter that made three requests of the city: 

• To designate a portion of downtown NoDa as a Congested Business District (CBD), requiring vendors to apply for a permit before they could set up on designated streets, limiting the amount of vendors who would be allowed to do so.
• To develop “sensible guidelines” that regulate street vending citywide.
• To better enforce existing statutes that could curb some of the negative effects street vendors have had on nearby businesses, including parking in loading zones for extended periods of time.

The NoDa NBA implemented its own community guidelines that set certain expectations for street vendors to operate respectfully in the neighborhood, but they were not enforceable. Two years later, no action has been taken by the city and tensions remain as business owners continue to call for more enforceable regulation. 

What’s happening now? 

The city’s May 22 public input session brought 35 participants including business owners and street vendors from NoDa along with stakeholders from other areas where street vending is a concern such as North Tryon Street in Uptown and South End. 

City staff’s takeaways from the discussions about NoDa included complaints from business owners regarding personal safety, adverse business impacts, loss of the family-friendly environment, sidewalk/street obstructions and a lack of oversight. 

For their part, street vendors argued that they attract people to the area and are part of NoDa’s culture, asserting that many seek to successfully coexist with the business owners. 

“We support and love local business and small business growth, although it’s gone from being a nuisance to a public emergency for public safety,” said Michael Sims, owner of Crowntown Cannabis, about the street vendor issue during a public forum in front of Charlotte City Council on May 27. 

Sims spoke alongside Neighborhood Theatre founder Paul McBroom, who acknowledged that some of the street vendors in the neighborhood are great people and stated that he hoped the city could provide a place for them to go while also insisting that there is no room on the sidewalks for any of them to operate in NoDa without causing obstructions.

Michael Roessler, a NoDa resident who in 2023 started a petition supporting street vendors that garnered more than 1,600 signatures, also spoke at the May 27 city council meeting. 

“When these folks, who are mostly white, walk the neighborhood streets, they seemingly don’t see the lively dynamic place the rest of us see — a place made better and brighter and bolder by our street vendors, who are mostly people of color,” Roessler said. 

“Instead, they see danger and disorder, lawlessness and violence,” he continued. “The naysayers from NoDa tell a one-sided tale of exaggerated inconveniences and costs without accounting for real abundant benefits provided by the street vendors.” 

What city leaders are saying

During continued discussions of the HSCC in its May and June meetings, committee members acknowledged the issues business owners were facing and called on city staff to put solutions in front of the full Charlotte City Council before it went on summer recess from June 23-Aug. 4. 

“Safety is the No. 1 goal and there’s no hierarchy in safety, so we want everybody to be safe,” said HSCC member Tiawana Brown. “Doing nothing is not an option. I want to make sure that it’s fair and not biased and that we’re not eliminating people who want to be in the vending space and in the community to make authentic revenue for their families if that’s a part of their income.” 

“We have seen street vendors work with communities successfully throughout the years. They work with the businesses [where] they set up,” added LaWana Mayfield. “We’ve seen that forever on weekends and in parking lots, but what we’re seeing right now, I think it’s a very different level.”  

Mayfield voiced her concerns with the issues around accessibility, as did fellow committee member Dimple Ajmera, who said she and her husband used to visit NoDa regularly until they had kids, at which time they stopped because the sidewalks are usually too clogged by vendors to push strollers through.

“There are parts of our city that have expanded and there are parts that have had the densification without the infrastructure,” said Dante Anderson, who represents the neighborhood as city council’s District 1 rep. “NoDa is a great example of that; the sidewalks haven’t expanded but the buildings have, the multifamily units have, there’s light rail, so it becomes a public safety issue.” 

Anderson also mentioned an issue that was brought up multiple times during committee discussions: the unregulated sale of food and beverages. The committee tasked city staff with formulating a stricter permitting or regulation process for street vendors selling consumable goods. 

Most of the committee members agreed that they had no intention of criminalizing street vending in Charlotte, as they would like to see some sort of compromise that allows for folks to hawk their wares in designated spaces. 

Johnson pointed to the Innovation Barn in the Belmont neighborhood as a space the city leases for $1 a year to serve as an incubator for nonprofits. She suggested the city could host a similar space to help small-scale retailers sell their goods. 

It appeared that all committee members were in support of increasing fines for violating street vending ordinances from $10-$50 up to a $500 maximum as a deterrent. The committee voted unanimously to send that measure to the full Charlotte City Council for a vote. Even if passed, that new measure won’t immediately affect NoDa, where street vending is not yet illegal. 

Read more: SEIU Stands Firm in Calling for City to Improve Pay, Safety at CLT

Another goal for city staff in June is to form a pilot program that would either make NoDa a Congested Business District or operate similarly to that, banning all unpermitted street vending within the neighborhood and potentially allowing a limited number of vendors to operate in designated spots that don’t block the sidewalks or streets. 

Shawn Heath with the city manager’s office said it would likely take his staff longer than a month to work out all the logistics of a new pilot program in NoDa. 

Heath is scheduled to lead a presentation on potential street vending regulations at tonight’s Charlotte City Council meeting, beginning at 5 p.m.