Legal Regulations and Street Vendors from the Eyes of a Municipal Commissioner

Street vendors are defined as the person who does not work in a certain sales place, goes to the place where the consumer is located and offers her goods for sale. In this chapter, the rights and regulations of street vendors are examined in terms of Municipality Law, Municipal Police Law and Misdemeanors Law. According to sub-clause (m) of Article 15 of the Municipality Law No. 5393, it is the duty of the municipality to prevent peddlers who sell without permission in order to develop and register the economy and trade in the town. According to the article 10 (c-5) of the Municipal Police Law, it is the duty of the municipal police to ban the peddlers who sell in the streets, parks and squares in violation of the legislation and health conditions. But during the pandemic, almost all street vendors such as bagel sellers, chestnut and corn sellers, water sellers and all kinds of peddlers suffered a great loss of income like other professions. Confiscating goods and looms is often not a solution; these people perform the same job again after a certain period of time. The solution is to register and include peddling and street vending, which are important elements of the informal economy, in the tax system.