The Health Department wants to yank the permits of more than 500 street food vendors after undercover investigators found widespread fraud.
Acting at the urging of the Department of Investigation, health officials said they’re reviewing “a list of possible illegal permits.”
The Post first revealed the existence of the probe in an exclusive report June 15. Last week, DOI disclosed that city permits costing no more than $200 were being hawked for up to $15,000, and that six people had been busted.
Dewan Munnu, who has been peddling hot dogs at the corner of Reade and Centre streets for 17 years, said hot-dog vendors, who take in about $100 to $200 a day, have to shell out about $4,000 for a two-year permit.
Munnu said a “halal” food seller with a more extensive menu would earn about $700 a day, and a permit would fetch about $12,000.
Suspicions at the Health Department were aroused in 2006, when workers at its Maspeth, Queens, facility began noticing that an unusually high number of carts were being brought in for inspection by the same small group of vendors and middlemen.
Investigators discovered that unscrupulous vendors were gaming the system by using clean carts as stand-ins for those that couldn’t pass inspection.
Additional reporting byJessica Simeone