What "self-reported permit" means on this site

New York City issues a limited number of mobile food vending permits each year, and the waiting list for new full-term permits has been closed for most of the last decade. That matters for a site like this one: it would be easy to slap a green "verified" badge on every truck, and dishonest.

Instead, every truck that signs up self-reports whether it holds a valid permit. We show that status exactly as given — no verification, no guessing. If a truck doesn’t check that box, we say so plainly rather than hiding the question.

Down the road, we’d like to build a real verification step — most likely by asking to see the permit directly, the way a customer could ask at the window. Until that exists, "self-reported" is the honest word for what you’re seeing.