You Can Lead A Pushcart To Customers . . .

The market for fruit is cutthroat and possibly dangerous, resembling something you might see on The Wire:

Perhaps more than any other civic rivals, street vendors and brick-and-mortar stores seem to play a zero-sum game. The stores are wary of the vendors, whom they see as nimble nuisances undercutting their prices, unfettered by regulation or rent. The vendors see the stores as competition-hating Goliaths.

The city stepped briskly into the fray in December, when it proposed licensing a fleet of fruit and vegetable carts to operate in poor neighborhoods where people were eating little fresh produce.

Reaction was swift and noisy.

Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for small retailers, said the proposal, known as the Green Carts bill, would “cannibalize existing business.”

. . .

Kangchul Park, director of the Korean Produce Association, acknowledged that few Korean grocers were in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, two areas that would be affected by the legislation. But he predicted that licensed vendors would stray into forbidden areas with a higher demand for fruit. “Eventually,” Mr. Park said, “they’ll find out the reason why there are no grocery stores where they are. And sooner or later, they’ll be tempted to move to where there are other grocery stores.”