The city’s “hot dog king” has been banned from selling hot dogs from a sidewalk cart because he doesn’t have the proper license, but he claims it’s simply part of a nonsensical campaign to harass him and put him out of business.
Dan Rossi, 73, a beloved Manhattan street vendor, was ordered to close his stall outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 23 after a city Health Department inspector accused him of operating at his establishment without the required disabled veterans’ vendor license.
But Rossi, a disabled Vietnam War veteran, told The Washington Post that he’d had the permit for decades, and that inspectors simply removed the sticker from his cart before submitting the paperwork.
“They are always playing games with me,” Rossi said, alleging that the Ministry of Health has done this at least five times before, including last year.
“This isn’t the first time they’ve done something like this, but this time it’s right before Memorial Day weekend,” he said, adding that the timing of the closures is like “spitting in the face” of both living and deceased veterans.
“It really pisses me off that they have no respect for anybody,” he said.
Rossi has been selling hot dogs on the streets of New York City for nearly 40 years, earning a Disabled Veterans’ Permit, which gives veterans injured in the line of duty special privileges to sell food almost anywhere in the city.
The street meat vendor said he believes the Health Ministry is trying to put veterans like him out of business by imposing new laws restricting where they can be sold and tightening control over the street market.
He believes his veterans permit, issued in 1983, is likely the oldest in the city. He said there are probably only “five or six” veterans left who hold the permit, which was created under a historic law first written for Civil War veterans.
“It’s just, ‘Keep punching until you’re tired,'” said Rossi, who earned the nickname “The Hot Dog King” for his strategy of sleeping in a van for years to secure a coveted spot outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He added that as the city’s longest-serving and most experienced dealer, he knows the law better than anyone else — and that it makes him a target.
He said he expected his stall to be closed for around two weeks, as it had been in the past, while he went through bureaucratic procedures to prove once again that he was officially licensed.
“It will be the same as always. I go to the health centre on Monday and they will play all sorts of games with me for a few days,” he said.
“I went to court and the judge dismissed it, as usual,” he said. “This is my livelihood, so I can’t play games.”
A GoFundMe has been set up in Rossi’s name to help get him through the recent closure.
The Health Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Rossi’s harassment allegations, but said he was selling without a license.
“The Health Department closed this vendor because, even though it was operating in front of the Met, it did not have a NYC Disabled Veterans Specialty Vendor Permit or contract with the Parks Department,” a Health Department representative said in a statement. “A permit or contract is required to vend at that location.”
