“Why doesn’t he go to 47th Street?” Mossad shouted, referring to the Hasidim-heavy Diamond District. “He’s just coming to this particular spot, and he wants to grab it from me — and kill me, actually. Kill my business.”
The food cart wars on the streets of Manhattan have heated up again. As the New York Post reports, Egyptian halal vendors are complaining that a much smaller kosher food cart operation is trying to steal their 'territory' – even though New York City does not assign territory to food carts:
…A Jewish kosher-food purveyor says he’s being prevented from settling in the heart of Manhattan by the “halal mafia.”
Yisroel Mordowitz insists he just wants to peacefully peddle sandwiches piled high with brisket or pastrami from his Holy Rollers cart in the lucrative Rockefeller Center area, 48th Street off Sixth Avenue.
But a group of irate Egyptian competitors block the kosher vendor from setting up on the sidewalk, literally squatting on the curb or placing umbrellas and beverage cartons to cordon off the space.
“This guy is hungry — hungry for money,” bellowed 48th Street Sabrett-slinger Mohamed Mossad, who along with nearly a dozen others successfully kept Mordowitz off the block. “I have a family, too!”
“Why doesn’t he go to 47th Street?” Mossad shouted, referring to the Hasidim-heavy Diamond District. “He’s just coming to this particular spot, and he wants to grab it from me — and kill me, actually. Kill my business.”…
Escalating tensions so concerned Avram Wolpin, the mashgiach — or on-site supervisor who certifies food as kosher — that he feared a veritable falafel fatwa. He told Mordowitz he was worried he would “disappear.”
After two unsuccessful attempts to work on Sixth, Mordowitz made his exodus southwestward to 35th Street and Ninth Avenue, near B&H Photo, the Hasidic-run electronics megastore.…
“This is not Palestine!” one vendor shouted, according to Mordowitz.
The kosher vender said, “They’re trying to say that the Jews in Israel are pushing people out, so don’t do it here.”
Mordowitz said one rival even followed managing partner Yosef Salzbank around in a Jeep Cherokee, making sure he parked the cart far enough away.
“I said, ‘Why are you terrorizing me?’ ” Mordowitz recalled.…
Read it all here.
[Hat Tips: The Lion, Sfek-Sfaika.]