Given that I have been and still am a denizen of a small rural community in Alaska, I'm (still) an odd one indeed to be writing about the state of America's major cities and Democrat/leftist jurisdictions. If you've been reading my work for the last few years, you know I grew up in a rural setting in Iowa and am now a happy rural dweller myself. I have little time for cities, despite having lived in them for four decades. I find them unpleasant; crowded, noisy, and, to be honest, they smell bad. I like the clean country air of the Susitna Valley, and if that means I have to put up with the occasional porcupine wandering through the property, that's fine.
So, why am I still worried about America's cities? Because our cities are the beating hearts of our nation. Much of the country's economic activity happens there. Urban areas host much of the country's industry and academia. What's more, our cities used to be the pride of the nation, but that's less the case now. Case in point: New York, where the plague of unlicensed street vendors seems to be beyond control. Most of these vendors are unlicensed; many are purveying fraudulent merchandise, and yet the city, under the communist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, just doesn’t seem to be able to do anything about them.
City Journal's Daniel Edward Rosen has seen them for himself.
The counterfeit market on Canal Street operates in plain sight. The vendors spread their wares—the fake Louis Vuitton bags, Rolex watches, Gucci wallets, and Prada sunglasses—across blankets and folding tables. When the police approach, the vendors gather up all their merchandise and scatter; when the police eventually leave, they come back and start selling again.
It isn’t because the NYPD has stopped arresting them—in 2025 alone, cops in the 1st and 5th Precincts, which cover Canal Street and its surroundings, made 908 arrests for trademark counterfeiting. More than 92 percent of those arrests were booked as felonies, according to NYC Open Data. But then, in almost all the cases, the felonies disappeared.
That’s not surprising; not in New York, nor would it be surprising for many of our nation’s declining cities. These jurisdictions point to their claims of a declining crime rate, but a good part of that reduction is due to the fact that so many of the crimes, large to small, violent to fraudulent, are plea-bargained away.
There are no consequences to speak of. So, if an illegal street vendor gets picked up, they know perfectly well they will be released and back in business, often within a matter of hours.
Across Manhattan, of the 696 total counterfeiting cases in 2025, just two were arraigned as felonies, while 694 were arraigned on misdemeanors, according to New York State Pretrial Release Data. And the misdemeanor cases rarely produce serious consequences. From 2022 through 2025, 68 percent of Manhattan’s counterfeiting cases ended in adjournments in contemplation of dismissal (ACDs), compared with 17 percent of other Manhattan misdemeanor cases. Another 340 cases were dismissed outright, 181 in the “furtherance of justice” and 138 on speedy-trial grounds.
Incentives matter. Big-city liberals never seem to get this. And the incentives here are easy to discern; it may be illegal for street vendors to callously block sidewalks and peddle fake goods, but there’s little risk involved, no matter what the city authorities may have to say about it.
In October 2024, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry proudly announced on social media that the department had cleared Canal Street of “unlawful vendors.” He included a video, made with impressive production quality, to show how the department’s Community Response Team had “swiftly [implemented] our plan and delivered the results you deserve.”
Three days later, the Community Response Team, working with officers from the 5th Precinct, was back on Canal Street. Police arrested three people and seized another haul of counterfeit goods. Daughtry again posted videos of the operation.
This has happened, again, and again, and again. In 2025, before the commie Mamdani took over as Mayor, nearly every week reportedly brought in more busts, more fake merchandise confiscated, more charges plea-bargained down. What’s worse, many of the vendors are illegal aliens, some openly so, but in “sanctuary” New York, there’s little to no risk there, either.
There’s an answer, and as is usually the case, the answer is in rigorous enforcement. Selling counterfeit goods is against the law, and may be prosecuted as a felony. This is what the city should be doing. Their goods are their stock in trade, and even an inventory of fakes may be worth thousands of dollars. Not only should the city be confiscating and destroying the fakes scooped up with the vendors, but they should be investigating the pipelines through which the fake merchandise flows, in conjunction with state and federal authorities if need be, and shutting those down as well. And, yes, any illegal aliens scooped up in the city actions should be handed over to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) for immediate repatriation.
This isn’t as serious a problem, granted, as some of the other issues faced by our major cities, like expansive homeless enclaves and drug use, human trafficking, sanitation, and public health issues that surround them. It’s not as serious a problem as rampant welfare fraud or any of the other major issues our cities face today. But there is a matter of principle here; we are a nation of laws, not whims. These people are breaking the law. If allowed to do so, some of them will grow bolder. They will break more laws, and they will break more serious laws, knowing, perhaps correctly, that they face little risk.
That’s what has to change. That’s what New York, and our other major cities, have to reclaim: Law and order, even when the law being broken is just an illegal alien peddling face Gucci handbags.
