00:00Me? I don't. Are you kidding me? If you've been eyeing up a Goyard tote or Christian
00:09Dior sunglasses or Gucci wallet, you can get a dupe for pretty cheap and pretty good looking
00:14on Canal Street. They are everywhere, duped bags by the dozens covering almost every inch
00:21of sidewalk down there. So long as you follow the number one rule of the street vendors,
00:25the one thing you cannot do is film them. Walking down Canal Street, it took all of two seconds
00:32before the vendors were yelling at me, covering up their faces, asking me why I was filming,
00:37telling me I wasn't allowed to. And one particularly furious one smacked the phone
00:41right out of my hand. Yeah? What are you doing? Filming. Huh? Filming. Why are you taking me
00:50video of the sidewalk? Me? I don't. Are you kidding me? Oh my God. He was screaming at
01:06me. Everyone else was screaming at me. I didn't know if they were going to come after me and
01:10try to take the phone out of my hand or try to erase the footage or break it. I had
01:14no
01:14idea what was going on. So I called the police. I called 911. There was not a cop in sight
01:19down
01:20there, despite the fact that there were hordes, hundreds of these illegal bags on the street.
01:25By the time the cops came down and talked to the guy, he hadn't gone anywhere. He was brazenly
01:28just standing exactly where he was when he smacked the phone out of my hand. He was furious at me,
01:34so mad at me for filming him to begin with. He thought I should be the one in trouble,
01:39having no idea that I'm allowed to film on a public sidewalk. Now, I don't expect everyone
01:45to know the intricacies of where you can and cannot film. I'm a journalist. It's my job. I
01:49know them. What I do expect is the basic kindergarten rule of keep your hands to yourself. What is wild
01:56here? The guy, as you could see, leapt up, smacked the thing out of my hand. It didn't go flying
02:02because I was working. So it's on a handheld tripod, like a selfie stick. So I had it firmly in
02:08my hand
02:08because of that, because he didn't actually touch my person and the phone didn't hit the ground and
02:13crack or break. It's not assault. It's only harassment. Assault would have been an arrest.
02:19Harassment is just a ticket. The cops seemed kind of frustrated. They said it's basically catch and
02:24release. They round up all of these people selling these things. And then by the time they're arrested,
02:29the next day they are out again, doing it one more time. The guys were so mad at me. Every
02:35single one
02:35of them were screaming at me, flipping me off, cursing at me, calling me names. I was scared
02:44to go on the subway because I would have had to walk past them again. And I didn't want
02:48to wait there alone around all of them for an Uber. So the cops offered to drive me somewhere
02:52else while I waited. They only took me a half a block and then pretty much ditched me.
