Sanitation workers were caught on video throwing out mountains of perfectly good fruit and vegetables outside a Chinatown store — including thousands of dollars’ worth of Mandarin oranges, Chinese pears and other delicacies — after ticketing the shopkeeper for blocking the sidewalk.
The garbage men dumped the produce on Feb. 3 after they were called to the East Broadway store by the NYPD, which cited the owner for unlicensed vending and sidewalk obstruction, according to police.
Cops said he was a repeat offender and had owed $60,000 in fines.
But owner Mohammad Ullah, a 52-year-old father of six who lives in Brooklyn, claimed the officers never gave him a chance to move the boxes of fruit.
“The cop came and told me to move, so I started moving the boxes,” he said. “Son of a bitch sits in his car and calls sanitation, then they come and take everything. He was watching me move the boxes and he still called men to take it away. It was like a robbery. I lost $8,300 of merchandise in one day.”
Ullah said he had just purchased the fruit the day before.
“It was all fresh,” he explained. “They threw out 52 boxes of fresh cherries — those were $3 a pound! There was lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, grapefruit, Chinese pears. But the worst was the oranges. Everyone here wants the Mandarin oranges, and they’re all gone.”
‘It was like a robbery. I lost $8,300 of merchandise in one day.’
- Mohammad Ullah, produce vendor
New Yorkers who watched the produce dump on Facebook blasted the city on Friday for wasting the food, saying it should have been given to the homeless.
“This has to be the dumbest s*** in the world so many people hungry and we’re wasting food over f***ing regulations,” wrote Sam Marrero, of Queens.
“The Dept of Sanitation and NYC should be ashamed,” added Bronx resident Antonio Mastrogiacomo.
“That food could have been donated to a shelter or given to the homeless,” he seethed. “This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to “waste” in NYC.”
Ullah also thought the city should have given the fruit to the hungry and less fortunate.
“They took all my stuff and just threw it in the garbage. It’s such a waste,” he said. “People have to eat.”
When asked why they didn’t give the fruit to the homeless, the Department of Sanitation simply said they were called by the NYPD to dispose of the goods, and that’s what they did.