Details of food plaza leases irk area vendors

Termination clauses, future rents and possible forced relocations face vendors in the plazas. and Edward Sherwin With only 12 days left before the city ordinance regulating street and sidewalk vending in the University City area goes into effect, the discord between the Penn administration and the displaced vendors is only growing with the summer heat. As the anticipated August 4 date rapidly approaches, construction crews are hard at work completing the University's five fresh air food plazas, but the allocation of spaces to vendors -- and the terms of their leases -- are still the subject of controversy. After joining forces with the City Council in an effort to curb vending on campus, the University is building five food plazas on its property to help house some of the displaced vendors after the April 23 City Council ordinance banned vending on most streets and sidewalks in the area. According to officials, the University's plight to restrict vending stemmed from its desire to improve campus appearance. The five plazas are located at 40th Street between Walnut and Locust streets, between Gimbel Gymnasium and the parking garage on the 3700 block of Walnut Street, at 34th and Walnut streets behind to Meyerson Hall, at 33rd and South streets by Franklin Field and 34th and Spruce streets by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, the University notified the 47 vendors who were granted spaces in the food plazas of their future locations. Meanwhile, all of those denied plaza slots in the application process -- along with the vendors who desired to stay on or near their current street locations -- are waiting for word from the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections as to the future of their businesses. Jack Shannon, the University's top economic development official, said that Penn is now "working with the vendors" to ensure compliance with requirements for licensing and truck and cart design and maintenance. But based on the contentious details of the leases, many vendors are upset with the treatment they have received at the hands of the University. "A lot of things in the contract weren't fair," said Ralph DiLuzio, owner of Ralph's Lunch Truck on the 3400 block of Walnut Street. "No vendors say it was fair. DiLuzio -- who will be moving his truck into a food plaza next month -- said that in order to express their grievances, several vendors held a meeting Monday night with Shannon and a University lawyer. "We told them what our beef was and they told us theirs," he said. "I hope we can come to some kind of agreement." Several provisions of the food plaza leases have drawn the particular ire of the vendors. One of the clauses allows the University to terminate a vendor's contract for not showing up for two consecutive weeks. "What if you get sick or hurt, it's not fair," said Lac Nguyen, owner of George's Super Lunch on the 3600 block of Walnut Street. "What if something happens to my father or my mother, I have to go be with them first. It's not fair enough." But Nguyen, who was awarded a location in the food plaza next to Gimbel, considers himself fortunate compared to other vendors. "Actually, I think I was lucky to get the spot," he said, adding that vendors who get spaces through the city may have difficulty because "people won't know where they are located and in bad weather people won't want to walk far." For the first five years of the leases, the University will charge all of the vendors in the plazas $1 a month while providing them with sanitation, lighting, water lines and electrical hook-ups. For the vendors who get spaces on the street through the city, trucks will be charged $2700 a year and carts will not be charged. But after the first five years, the rents will increase substantially, though they will still be "below market rate rent," Shannon said. He explained that rates were proposed to the vendors, but declined to say what they were as they had not been finalized. "The rents that will be charged will be far below the rents charged to the tenants of the 3401 Walnut Street food court," Shannon said. But Haywood Davis, owner of Veda's Vegetarian Delights food cart on the 3700 block of Spruce Street, did not see how outdoor vendors and food court retailers could be compared. "With the weather and all, you might be out of work from November until March, you never know," he said. "And now they want to charge rent that the vendors might not even have." Davis, who was denied a food plaza location due to excessive demand, noted that he is still waiting to hear from the city as to whether he will be permitted to remain in his current location, which he has held since February. "[L&I;] really hasn't contacted me yet, but as far as I know, this is my spot," Davis said. "Everything's really up in the air right now.? no one really knows where they are going to be." Davis also expressed his dissatisfaction with the vending ordinance itself, which he said aims to restrict "free enterprise." "You can't fight City Hall and you can't fight the University, and they put their heads together and passed an ordinance which never should have been passed in the first place," he said. "The University snowballed City Council in a way, making all sorts of promises to make the ordinance look good so that Jannie Blackwell would pass it.? the University employs a lot of people and so they have a lot of power with City Council. Money talks and that's sad."