By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Food carts are doubling as bedrooms as operators battle to snag prime Manhattan spots, the New York Post reported.
Despite Department of Health mandates that vendors bring their carts to a commissary for cleaning and storage when business ends, some are shuttering their vans and rolling out sleeping bags.
Many carts are being left on profitable street corners, and at some vendors never leave, the Post reported
"That's crazy," Astoria resident Jennifer Suarez, 36, told the Post. "You shouldn't sleep where you serve food."
Among the food vendors who have taken up permanent stands, according to the Post, is the "Little Cupcake Lover" wagon at Broadway and Houston Streets. A photographer for the paper snapped a worker sleeping inside the cart.
At West Broadway and Broome Streets, a man in a gray hoodie was sleeping in a halal food cart alongside hot dog buns and napkins, the paper reported.
And on blocks around SoHo and Union Square, at least four street food carts were found left abandoned overnight on the sidewalk, according to the Post.
Other food vendors interviewed said that workers are sometimes asked to guard the carts past closing time, but sleeping should never occur.
Around 5,000 vendors across the city hold DOH licenses to operate the food carts, each of which costs thousands of dollars.
Every street food cart gets, at minimum, an annual inspection, a representative for the DOH told the Post. The Department also pursues complaints as they are filed.
But some people believe that level of supervision isn't enough.
"These things need to be more regulated," Tom Morton, a 30-year-old who claimed a halal cart recently gave him food poisoning, told the Post.
