Street Cart Owner Fined, Vendor Fired Over $30 Hot Dogs

Late last week the vendor at a hot dog cart near the 9/11 memorial in New York was caught on camera scamming tourists with wildly overpriced hot dogs, and now the cart's owner has come forward to say that he was also being scammed by the salesman.

The vendor, Ahmed Mohammad, was caught on camera charging between $3 and $30 for a hot dog and soda. The normal price for a hot dog from a cart in Manhattan is more like $2. According to Gothamist, the cart's owner says he did not know anything about the scam, and that he first learned about it when he saw the video of Mohammad that went viral. It was then that the owner realized he was being cheated, too.

"He told me he charged the people $2 a hot dog," said Abdelalim Abdelbaky, the 22-year-old son of the cart's owner. "He lied to me."

Abdelbaky said he fired Mohammad as soon as he realized what was going on, but the mess is not yet over for the cart's owner. The cart has since reportedly been hit with about $1,500 in fines, for which Abdelbaky says his family is responsible.

"I lost money now, and I lost some customers, so I have a lot of losses," he said.