NYPD Crackdown on Stoop Sales? First They Came for Our Lemonade Stands…
This is terrible! Where else will I get ill-fitting leather jackets with pit stench that never quite goes away? And how else will I be able to unload said smelly leather outerwear if not at a stoop sale of my own?
Oh, what a world.
Gothamist reports that the NYPD shut down a stoop sale on Flatbush Ave near Grand Army Plaza on Sunday. The person conducting the stoop sale posted this on the Brooklynian message board “The police shut down my stoop sale yesterday at 1pm. I was in front of my building on Flatbush Ave near Grand Army Plaza with a bike, some clothes, some dishes and a floor lamp. They pulled up and sat in the car for a minute, and I thought they were going to the bodega for coffee or something. But instead, they both got out of the car and told my partner and I, ‘You can’t do this here.'”
This is awful! And a terrible infringement on our rights to buy, as Gothamist so perfectly sums up stoop sale inventory, “old chipped mixing bowls and VHS copies of Mad Dog and Glory.”
Mad Dog and Glory is one of Bill Murray’s lesser known and least important films, but it still deserves to be seen by those who stubbornly hold onto their VCRs. In my opinion!
At this point, the forced closure of a stoop sale appears to be an anomaly. The commenters on the original Brooklynian post posited a few reasons why this person’s stoop sale was targeted including, “One: bored cops. Two: A Brooklynian theorizes that ‘a local merchant complained that gypsies/vagrants were selling merchandise in front of their store (even thought that is *not* the case).’ Three: The landlord called the cops because the “stoop” seller is suing the landlord.”
So perhaps all of these forces conspired to shut down this particular stoop sale and the rest of us have nothing to worry about? Only time will tell. Only time and a ticket-happy NYPD force.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen
