Starting Sunday, the streets of Charlotte’s NoDa neighborhood will be a little emptier.
The city is ending a six-month pilot program that allowed vendors to sell food, clothes and art on the street — a decision that followed years of complaints about blocked sidewalks and unfair competition with brick-and-mortar businesses.
But not everyone in the neighborhood is happy to see the vendors go.
On a cold, cloudy afternoon in NoDa, Avery Britt sets up a metal clothing rack on a patch of grass beside the sidewalk. He pops opens a plastic bin and pulls out sweatshirts, button-ups, T-shirts and jackets — some printed with his own designs.
“The goal is ultimately to have like a whole rack of just my clothes,” Britt said.
A few feet away, vendor Alii Granados straightens her own racks filled with purses, belts, skirts and vintage coats.
“All styles, because nobody’s the same out here,” she said.
Granados has been selling in NoDa for more than three years. Britt for almost two. They typically work weekends and say they can make a few hundred dollars a day — sometimes much more.
“I think the best day I’ve had out here was like $2,500. In like one day,” Granados said.
That income helps her pay her mortgage. For Britt, it’s his only source of income.
But now they're faced with an uncertain future after a Charlotte City Council committee declined to extend the neighborhood's street vending pilot program, which launched Sept. 1, effectively expelling the vendors after six months of requiring them to have permits and to sell only in designated areas.
Mixed reactions in the neighborhood
The end of the program has drawn mixed reactions in NoDa, and even some critics of street vending say scrapping the program entirely is going too far.
“From a personal standpoint, I’m not very happy that it’s ending,” said Connor Klassen, president of the NoDa Neighborhood and Business Association. “We are an artistic area of the city of Charlotte, so losing that little bit of arts, culture, edginess that makes NoDa what it is right now — it's a little disheartening."
Klassen said that before the pilot program, as many as 20 vendors might crowd the streets on a busy weekend, sometimes blocking sidewalks or selling questionable food or THC and CBD products.
But the pilot, he said, helped scale that back — even if some problems remained.
“Do I think ending the program entirely is the right option? No, I do not, and I think a lot of our neighborhood agrees with that,” Klassen said.
At a Jan. 5 City Council committee meeting, NoDa’s representative, Dante Anderson, agreed the pilot showed progress. But she said the neighborhood's narrow sidewalks weren’t designed to handle street vendors and that some vendors continued to break the rules, knowing the most police could do was issue a citation.
“We’re still seeing vendors coming out. We still see vendors not adhering. We still see a lack of adherence,” Anderson said.
At her urging, the committee opted to allow the program to expire, give vendors the boot, and begin drafting citywide street-vending regulations that could include criminal penalties.
Vendors say livelihoods — and culture — are at stake
Back on the street, vendors say they're dismayed by the action.
"I think it's straight B.S.," said Granados. She said she followed the rules, got a permit and developed good relationships with nearby businesses.
She said her dream is to open a brick-and-mortar store. "But I can’t afford it. If I could, I wouldn’t want to be out in the cold, I’d want to be in a store,” she said.
Standing beside his rack, Britt said the decision chips away at the neighborhood’s artsy do-it-yourself vibe.
“I think the art in Charlotte is dying,” he said. “I think it’s been marginalized in a way that’s kind of sad.”
Some vendors, such as Jesse Titus, say they’re now considering leaving Charlotte altogether.
“It just kind of continues showing what Charlotte represents as a whole, which isn’t obviously something a creative has to glow for,” Titus said.
Even still, Granados said she isn’t ready to give up just yet. Even after the program expires on Sunday, she says she plans to keep showing up.
“I’m probably just going to keep setting up over here," she said, gesturing to the empty grass close to the Johnston YMCA. "I’m not bothering anybody. I’m not in front of any businesses. The most they can do is call the cops on me.”
On one hand, she said, she can’t afford a $500 fine, but on the other, this is her passion — and her bills and mortgage won’t pay themselves.
