Making Sense of Street Vendor Regulations

"OPEN the city’s administrative code book to any of the sections that deal with street-vending regulations, and you’re likely to find yourself staring uncomprehendingly at phrases like 'rules promulgated pursuant thereto.'

A native English speaker with a good dictionary might be able to manage. But what if your native language is Spanish? Or Bengali? Or Arabic?

For many street vendors, understanding the regulations that govern their trade is 'a really difficult prospect,' said Rosten Woo, executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy, a nonprofit design and research organization in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Which is why his company published an illustrated guide to street-vending rules last month.

'We tried to create something that uses as little language as possible to spell out the most critical pieces of the code,' Mr. Woo said."