Hard-Working News Vendor Wins Long Fought Battle for City License
Neighborhood lawyers and Council member Gail Brewer helped Sadik Topia, a beloved UWS newsstand vendor for 23 years, work through a thicket of fines and legal hurdles. He got the license in his old name finally on Feb. 7.
| 08 Feb 2025 | 03:55
Sadik Topia, man of the people, bringing them the news from his old stand on the corner of W. 79th St. and Broadway. (
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Sadik Topia, this is his city, and this is his license from the city. (
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Sadik Topia, seen in early 2024 when he learned the city was booting him from the newsstand he operated on the coner of West 79th Street and Broadway for decades under a license held by someone else. Now after a thicket of legal woes, he finally has a permit in his own name. (
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Sadik Topia, man of the streets. (
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Sami is back.
The newsstand dealer, Sadik Topia, has been granted a new license, with his own name on it, to operate the newsstand on West 79th and Broadway, concluding a year long saga that saw Sami, as he is known to all, out of work and his neighbors and customers campaigning for his return.
“I am so happy,” Topia told The Spirit, when we shared the news that he’d soon have the license in hand. “Thanks for everything.”
Topia, an immigrant from Gujarat in India, said he hopes to reopen the newsstand soon.
“Yes, I can confirm we’re approving Mr. Topia’s license application,” reported Michael Lanza, spokesperson for the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
The department, originally depicted in the neighborhood as a villain for shutting Topia down over unpaid fines, emerged as the hero, according to Topia’s supporters, for working through a thicket of problems that started with the fines and ended with the discovery that the original license holder, from whom Topia was subletting, was actually dead.
“Sadik’s case illustrates both how challenging it can be for microentrepreneurs to navigate the city’s complex regulations and how valued small businesses like his are to local communities of New Yorkers,” said Andrea Tan, Director of the Microenterprise Project at VOLS, Volunteers of Legal Services.
“It takes incredible resilience—particularly if you have limited English proficiency and lack access to legal resources—to persevere. In Sadik’s case, pro-bono legal assistance was critical to helping him continue to operate his business and have a fair chance to succeed. The neighborhood that rallied around him will be better for it.”
Tan served as pro-bono counsel for Topia, along with Dara L. Sheinfeld, who is one of Topia’s West Side customers as well as the head of pro-bono work for one of the city’s largest law firms, Davis, Polk & Wardwell.
“Our team is looking forward to a grand reopening in the very near future, when we can all celebrate this positive moment for Sadik and for the Upper West Side community,” said Sheinfeld, after the city announced it was giving Topia, who is 61, the license to run the newsstand he has worked at for 23 years.
In those years he became a neighborhood fixture, offering “newspapers, magazines, and neighborliness” from the newsstand, as Straus News reported in the first of its many stories about his case.
Topia was particularly revered for staying at his post all through the pandemic, when many stores on Broadway were dark.
“The love for this guy is hard to describe,” said Council member Gale Brewer, who helped focus the Adams administration on helping Topia. “It’s a big city and to have somebody that friendly in the morning . . . He is beloved.”
Beloved, yes, but not always scrupulous in selling only what he was licensed to sell. Topia acknowledges that to make ends meet, as the sale of printed news and magazines declined, he offered e-cigarettes and other vaping products he was not authorized to sell.
That produced summonses and, ultimately, fines and penalties for not paying fines topping $92,000. Brewer and others thought the penalty was excessive to the crime. They tried to raise money to help him, although that money was returned as the case became more complex.
As the city investigated Topia’s case they discovered that the actual holder of the license, who was subletting the newsstand to Topia, a widespread practice, was dead and that her daughter had been managing the business with Topia without updating the license as she should have and could have.
The city then revoked the license and invited Topia to apply for it. This week the city told Straus News the new license had been granted to Topia. One of the conditions is that he not sell vaping products, which require a separate hard-to-obtain license. City officials also said that paying the fines that started the whole saga was not Topia’s responsibility.
“I have been so impressed by Gale Brewer’s dedication to her constituents, who rallied behind Sadik in urging that he be permitted to reopen,” added Sheinfeld, “and by DCWP’s commitment to getting to the bottom of a complicated fact pattern in order to see justice served.”
For his part, Topia just said he was grateful. “I would like to thank the wonderful community and my loyal customers, who have helped me in this process,” he said.