The city is finally going to try to do something about mass-produced street fairs, where originality and innovation long ago surrendered to vendors hawking $10 watches and greasy sausages, officials said yesterday.
“It’s all the same stuff,” complained Mayor Bloomberg, who has been publicly trashing the fairs for two years.
Since the city no longer grants permits for new fairs, the number of traffic-clogging events has declined 17 percent since 2004, reaching a six-year low of 321 last year.
But that’s still too many, according to Bloomberg.
“I think the answer is to limit them and have them only in certain places,” he said.
Still, officials said they face significant legal hurdles in trying to limit and re-engineer the fairs, including the right of community sponsors to select the vendors they want.
In practice, many nonprofit groups allow professional fair organizers to run their events for an upfront fee, resulting in a uniformity of vendors and their wares.
Mayoral spokeswoman Evelyn Erskine promised that changes are afoot.
“The city is looking into updating rules for street fairs to ensure they are better regulated and a more efficient use of street space and city resources,” she said.
There’s no timetable for the new regulations.
The city took in $1.6 million in fees from fairs last year, but spent $4 million on police overtime.