totally agree. and I challenge anyone complaining about illegal migrants,,,, who is it that delivers your grubhub, who cleans your building?? and on and on.... heartless hypocrites. and i challenge them to get on board with a viable legal route to come here.. — Life long NYer on A protest is scheduled at the Independence Plaza garage

Plus, there's another esay solution: the vendors mostly set up where the storefronts are vacant. The city could do as they do with city-supported store pop-ups and just put a mobile police post in one of the vacants. — jfrankp on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Right? It works with prostitution, or drugs, or any vice. It's simple economics, at least location-wise: no demand, no supply. — jfrankp on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

This post explains a bit about how many agencies are involved here, and the limitations on what they can do. https://tribecacitizen.com/2025/10/24/illegal-vending-on-canal-street-its-a-constant-churn/ — Tribeca Citizen on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Yes. They only destroy the goods when they do those big raids that make the news. On daily sweeps if police take their goods the vendors can get their goods back. — Randy on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

That was going to be my comment as well. Social media should alert future tourists they might spend the night in jail if they are so inclined to purchase counterfeit goods purchased from someone with no street vending license. — CJB on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Amazing that this vacant lot will finally be developed. — MJ on More on the new building for West Broadway and Warren

All of this hilarious, because there's one easy solution: arrest the customers. Do it regularly, even if to just dismiss all their cases after they spend a day or more being booked or arraigned. The market will dry up in weeks, at least in that location. — jfrankp on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Please keep reporting to 311, every day if necessary, any time you witness the sellers out. It only takes a minute to submit a report on 311 online (phone call takes much longer). Also write the mayor and city council, repeatedly. If enough of us do this maybe the powers that be will wake up. — Marcus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Yes. If they are violating the parking rules of the block, report it to 311. But I bet these sellers just ignore the tickets they get. — Marcus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

The precinct divide is no excuse. As far as I know, police are allowed to make arrests outside their own precinct. After all, if police officer witnesses a shooting on the other side of the street, won't they act to intervene and arrest? So that should go for all crimes. — Marcus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Even if no sale is witnessed, can't they arrest them for repeatedly obstructing the sidewalks? It's impossible to get through, even worse if one needs a wheelchair, has a baby carriage, or is carrying anything like groceries. We end up having to walk out in the street - *** into insane Canal Street traffic *** - risking our lives because we can't get through the sidewalks. I blame the buyers as much as the sellers. They are funding organized crime. They are bringing this chaos, crime, littering, urination, etc. into our neighborhood where we live and work. — Marcus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

I've spoken to numerous police officers about this. They say the arrests have no effect. The sellers know they will be right back out. The recurring story I get from the police: Change will only happen if it comes from the top; there is no will to prosecute or punish in any way strong enough to act as deterrent. — Marcus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Is it true they get the goods back? I thought the goods are to be destroyed. — Marcus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

The 1st and 5th Precincts both report to the Patrol Borough Manhattan South commander. There is no good excuse for a lack of coordinated efforts between the two precincts. Since late June, the PBMS commander is Assistant Chief Melissa Eger (melissa.eger@nypd.org) The former PBMS commander was drummed out of the job and has since retired in disgrace. "NY Daily News: NYPD Manhattan chief swept up in federal bribery probe puts in retirement papers "Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News Sat, June 27, 2026 at 12:08 PM EDT "NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy, who was stripped of his gun and shield after his home was searched during an ongoing federal bribery probe on Wednesday has put in his retirement papers, the Daily News has learned. "McCarthy, 62, the once powerful head of Patrol Borough Manhattan South — where he led scores of cops covering the borough south of Central Park — filed for retirement late Friday, just two days after the NYPD and the FBI executed a search warrant at his home, the NYPD confirmed. [...]" — James Bogardus on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

This is what the police told me: By shear randomness of borders, the west side of Broadway is the 1st precinct police department and the east side of Broadway is the 5th precinct police department So when the 1st precinct does do a sweep, the sellers scatter for a bit from the west side of Broadway only. Same things happen with the 5th precinct for the east side of Broadway. This is why you sometimes see vendors only on one side of Broadway or the other. With that, from what I see the police do try and do a sweep (not a raid) once or twice a day. Sometimes it's one police car - and sometimes it is several officers. The vendors see the police and will pack up their stuff and flee. I believe the vendors have a lookout as they usually are fleeing before the police start patrolling. The police will monitor the area for a bit and then the police leave the vendors simply come back. The police say to actually make an arrest they have to watch see the sale in process. So if a vendor just has their goods out - there really is nothing the police could do. In a scenario where a police do see a sale of a counterfeit item, even if they do arrest the individual, the person will be released the next day. Further, I believe any of the stuff taken by the police can be reclaimed by the vendor the next day unless there it is one of the big raids (I assume there is a warrant involved then). The police claim they are doing everything in their power, but the laws are the biggest bottleneck and are what need to change. You would think people selling counterfeit merchandise without sidewalk vending permits would be easy to stop - but it's actually the opposite. — Randy on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

These counterfeit sellers park their inventory cars/vans along Broadway, Walker, and White Streets. Maybe NYPD can tackle on the vehicles storing their inventories. — ChibecaMom on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

As of this morning, the entire west side of Canal and Broadway is full swamped with illegal vendors, so that raid last month didn't appear to do anything. Nothing is going to change here unless the city gets serious about prosecuting these vendors and instructs the cops to shut this illegal market down *every day.* Just doing sweeps a few times a year is nothing more than a minor inconvenience to them. The vendors get released the same day and are right back the following morning. — James S on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Fat chance of any pro-policing laws changing under the current clown of a mayor and city council. They’re anti law enforcement. — Anthony on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

I wonder how many millions of dollar NYC spends to have the police do these raids and daily sweeps with basically no results. I have personally spoken with the police and they are doing everything they can, and I see their daily sweeps, but the laws basically are a revolving door allowing the sellers to get their goods back and sell the next day - even after the sweeps. For those that are more knowledgeable, is there any chance NYC actually changes the laws so that the police can do more? — Randy on NYPD raids counterfeit market on Canal

Have do these Russian bots find articles like this to spam. “Jimmy” “Sandra”. Definitely not anyone who has ever been to Tribeca. — Cd on A protest is scheduled at the Independence Plaza garage

Jimmy aside from the truth that the number is much lower and that included in that are people here legally as refugees fleeing genuine threats to their lives there’s the rather unfortunate fact that we, yes we, need the labor for entire sectors of our economy and the real problem is that since at least the era of significant labor shortages around World War II we haven’t exactly been honest about how we deal with that. No one in power is talking about reasonable changes to legal immigration, including work visas. Instead we exploit and harass decent people escaping poverty and violence using racist and xenophobic policies for political advantage. And, yes, it’s racism. And this nonsense about “your” actions leaves out the simple fact this is bipartisan neglect because no one in either party wants to fix the problem in good faith while a small part of the party in power wants to act dishonestly and unethically to gain power. What ICE is doing is not right. It’s also not serving the public interest, including yours. — John Gallagher on A protest is scheduled at the Independence Plaza garage

The whole ' you're a bigot, you're a fascist, white supremacy blah blah blah' mantra has become so overused and fake it has no meaning anymore. No one voted to have 20 million people come into this country illegally, yet that's what you did. Deal with the consequences of YOUR actions, instead of the fake tears. — Jimmy on A protest is scheduled at the Independence Plaza garage

James that’s just fear mongering. Sure, not all immigrants are angels. Some are bad people. The problem is that’s not the issue at all because that’s not what ICE is addressing or the current administration. They arrested a nun on her way to mass who I am sure wasn’t going to murder anyone. Bovino had plans to deport tens of millions of people without due process. Miller is an outright racist whose speeches and proposed policies channel the kind of crap that you would expect from Nazis. If you really were interested in getting bad guys you would reform the immigration process with easy to obtain and monitor visas and prioritize family reunification, economic development and assimilation. The current government policy is just about random acts of cruelty to make America white “again.” You might want to take a look at your own family history to see that perhaps some of the same kind of bigotry was used against them. — John Gallagher on A protest is scheduled at the Independence Plaza garage

Laken Riley. Say Her name. Laken Riley. Say Her name. — Jimmy on A protest is scheduled at the Independence Plaza garage