Melissa Bailey Photo
Vendor & Alderman Greg Morehead.
When he lost his cool and threatened to dump city official Andy Rizzo in New Haven Harbor, Carlos Espada-Maldonado didn’t know to whom he was talking. He ended up losing the license to his Puerto Rican food cart.
Espada-Maldonado, who owns La Pinchera, has sold Puerto Rican shish kebabs on Long Wharf since 2001.
His trouble began on April 18, when he and a rival food cart vendor were arrested in a dispute involving a knife and a gun. The city yanked both their licenses, then agreed to give them both a second chance.
Espada-Maldonado apparently blew that second chance this month. He lost his temper with a woman who was honking her horn outside his truck. Little did he know, the woman was the wife of Alderman Greg Morehead, who owns a nearby soul food cart.
Morehead (pictured above) called the cops right after the June 5 dispute. Two days later, the city again yanked Espada-Maldonado’s license, citing his criminal background and a second, unnamed incident. City officials declined to say what that second incident was, but police spokesman Officer Joe Avery said he believed it was the June 5 confrontation with the Moreheads.
The booted food cart owner blasted the city for revoking his license. He accused the city of “nitpicking” his behavior.
Melissa Bailey File Photo
“I’m real mad about it,” said Espada-Maldonado (pictured with his girlfriend at a previous administrative hearing, in a phone interview. “We need to make money. How are we going to survive?”
Morehead described Espada-Maldonado as a “hotheaded” “troublemaker” who deserved to lose his license.
“He tries to intimidate everybody,” Morehead said, “but he doesn’t scare me.”
When Morehead called 911 on the “troublemaker,” five cops showed up. Here’s what happened, according to interviews with Alderman Morehead and Espada-Maldonado:
Around noon on Saturday, June 5, Shanah Morehead was driving her car into a parking area near Long Wharf Drive, where food carts are now corralled together because of highway construction.
Depending on whom you ask, she was either “speeding through the lot,” or was calmly trying to get around a customer who was parked in front of La Pinchera. She blew her horn and called out for the car to move out of the way, according to both parties. Espada-Maldonado objected to her request. He told her she had no right to be driving there.
“We’re trying to have no cars in the lot,” Espada-Maldonado later explained. “She’s just a troublemaker.”
After Espada-Maldonado refused to move his customer, Shanah Morehead told him she would take up the issue with Andy Rizzo, the city’s top building official, who handles vending permits. Espada-Maldonado replied that he didn’t care if Rizzo came to Long Wharf.
“I’ll Throw Him In The Water”
Espada-Maldonado admitted losing his temper at that point: “She was threatening me with Rizzo and the city. And that [made] me very mad.”
He admitted threatening to hurl the city official into the harbor.
“I told her — go bring Rizzo here and I’ll throw him in the water. I told her just like that,” Espada-Maldonado said.
Shanah Morehead drove away and told her husband what had happened. Alderman Morehead went over to La Pinchera to ask what happened. He called Rizzo to report the incident. During their conversation, Espada-Maldonado also allegedly made a threat to the other Puerto Rican vendor, with whom he’d fought in April. “It’s not over,” he allegedly said, according to Morehead.
After what he called two separate threats, Morehead called the cops. Five police cars rolled into Long Wharf. Officer Darryl Cargill took down statements from both sides, which reflect the above narratives.
According to Cargill, Espada-Maldonado’s license was valid at the time of the dispute.
The vendor’s license was revoked on June 7, “based on background and another incident,” according to a note scrawled on Cargill’s police report. It’s not clear whether the “incident” is the one described by Morehead or a separate one. Rizzo declined to specify which “incident” was the fatal blow to the vendor’s license.
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Rizzo said the decision wasn’t his — he got orders from Assistant Chief Stephanie Redding, who had warned Espada-Maldonado in April that he only had one more chance before losing his license. He sent out a letter on June 8 advising Espada-Maldonado that he is now banned from selling food at Long Wharf.
All Quiet On The Waterfront
Espada-Maldonado appealed that decision in letters to Rizzo and to Redding, who is retiring effective July 2. Redding could not be reached for this story. Rizzo said an appeals hearing had not yet been scheduled.
Meanwhile, Espada-Maldonado said he’s left without a livelihood: “I can’t feed my family. I gotta pay my bills. It’s real hard. I don’t know what I need to do now.”
Morehead stood inside his truck, Mobile Soul Food, serving up fried chicken sandwiches to two post office workers Friday afternoon. He and his wife have run the cart there since October. They’re open for lunch seven days a week, longer on weekends. They sell southern food like yams, fish sandwiches and and collard greens. He said the food-selling lot has become much more peaceful since the “troublemaker” left.
“We’re all supposed to be like a family down here,” said Morehead of his fellow vendors. “We’re all down here trying to make money — some people don’t see it that way. They think it’s their territory.”
Since Espada-Maldonado left, the sense of family, and tranquility, has returned, Morehead said: “It’s been quiet down here.”