Crackdown on unlicensed vendors reaches Grand Army Plaza farmers market

The city’s crackdown on unlicensed vendors reached Brooklyn’s popular Grand Army Plaza greenmarket on Saturday, when parks department police arrested a man who’d set up a table with a bong, mushroom statue and other paraphernalia — and seized his pet cat.

The vendor – who had a tablecloth reading “Trippy Gawdz” – was charged with unlawful vending and solicitation. The city has not released his name. But an Instagram account for Trippy Gawdz shows mushrooms and edibles were for sale at the same farmers market in an August video – and features a cat named Nala.

Parks department spokesperson Dan Kastanis said the vendor had “repeatedly” ignored officers’ warnings and “remained non-compliant over the span of several weeks.”

An Instagram message to the Trippy Gawdz account wasn’t immediately returned.

In a video shot by Park Slope resident Justin Ward Weber, the vendor tells parks enforcement patrol officers to “stop surrounding me right now” while speaking into a microphone.

“I’m not doing anything. I’m not selling weed. Get out of my face,” he says. “You’re not a police officer. You can’t put your hands on me.”

Parks officers then wrestle him to the ground and arrest him.

“Effectuating an arrest is our last course of action,” Kastanis said. The spokesperson declined to comment on what the vendor was selling. The parks enforcement patrol officers typically issue summonses for minor violations within the park. But they are considered law enforcement officers with authority to arrest people.

Video shows the parks officers then packed up the vendor’s merchandise, including a white board listing “Shrooms.” The officers also took the cat, which was in a carrier, the video shows. In the video, bystanders can also be heard offering to take in the cat on the vendor’s behalf. One onlooker yells, “You’re going to impound his animal?”

The cat was taken to Animal Care Centers “for holding,” Kastanis said.

But ACC spokesperson Katy Hansen could not confirm whether the cat was entered into the city’s animal shelter system.

Weber said he’s seen the vendor several times at the market, singing, performing spoken word and “just chilling.”

“It really, really sucks that something that’s so enjoyable and a local part of the greenmarket is being pushed away,” Weber added.

The arrest comes amid a recent spate of enforcement against unlicensed vendors across the city. The city Department of Transportation is seeking to kick all peddlers off the Brooklyn Bridge, and the city sanitation police cleared out the Queens street vendor market in Corona Plaza earlier this year.

GrowNYC, which operates the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket, has strict vendor rules that prioritize local farmers. The city allows “expressive art” vendors to set up in parks in designated spots. Marijuana sales are not allowed in city parks, and although psychedelic mushrooms are illegal in New York, many unlicensed weed stores sell them.

The Parks enforcement agents began targeting unlicensed vendors at Grand Army Plaza earlier this month, according to Tracey Reid, who sells herbal teas and spices at her Lionheart Natural Herbs stand.

Reid said she’d set up her table around Prospect Park for decades without trouble until Nov. 18, when officers booted her and about a dozen other vendors from Grand Army Plaza.

Parks spokesperson Chris Clark said herbs and spices are not allowed to be sold in the city’s parks. Reid said none of the vendors kicked out of the market had permits — but noted there aren’t any permits that apply to her merchandise.

“I’m not a concession stand,” Reid said. “They know we don’t have a permit, because they don’t have a permit that we can apply for.”

Weber called the Trippy Gawdz vendor’s arrest a sign of “intimidation” by the city. He pledged to return to the greenmarket next Saturday to monitor any further enforcement efforts against the unlicensed vendors.

“All these local vendors… they live here, you know, they’re Brooklynites. They come with their homemade stuff and community-made stuff,” Weber said. “And that is such a great part of coming to the market to meet them, and to get to know your community more.”

“It just sucks that they’re being scared away.”