You have to wonder if people actually read the things they sign. Part of the package for last Tuesday night’s Council Hearing on Peddlers and Street Vendors was this form letter signed by 12 business people in town. The first part is innocuous enough.
I am a business owner in the City of Twentynine Palms and it has come to my attention that the City is considering amending Development Code Section 19.33.060 Limitations on Hawking.
I can understand that one could have some problems with pesky peddlers trespassing on a fellows property and bother ones regular customers. But that turns out to not the problem at all.
The proposed changes are not compatible with established, brick-and-mortar businesses and would harm my business. Hawkers, transient sellers, sidewalk vendors and peddlers would directly compete with my business without having to provide the facilities or incur the expenses that I have had to as an established business owner.
What does that mean? Would another brick and mortar restaurant on the block or another flower shoppe on the same block be compatible with that established, brick-and-mortar businesses? Would it harm an existing “established” business any less?
Hawkers, transient sellers, sidewalk vendors and peddlers could sell merchandise within 100 feet of any established business.
How does the proximity of a Street Vendor to an existing business have a negative effect to the bottom line of a business who allows a Street Vendor to use their property? Well lets go on and see what the scare is:
For example, a sidewalk vendor could sell flowers within 100 feet of a flower shop; a transient seller could sell Mexican food near a Mexican Restaurant.
Oh my God, you mean that there can be competition in town for services?
“These are different types of business models,” Institute lawyer Elizabeth Foley told John Stossel in his article How The Government’s War on Street Vendors Keeps People Poor. “A florist can offer professional arrangement. A florist can offer delivery. A florist has a bathroom. Air conditioning. A street vendor is out there on the street, and the way they compete is on price and convenience; you can drive up and get your flowers and go home quickly. There’s nothing wrong with having two different types of business models competing near each other. It happens in America all the time.
“It’s not legitimate for government to use its incredible power to make one business model have an unfair advantage over another.”
The letter from our local businesses continues:
In addition, hawkers would not be required to provide parking as the City required me to provide for my business, nor would hawkers be required to provide restrooms for same-location hawking of less than four hours.
How is the stupid parking regulations the city has developed to impede commerce the problem or fault of Street Vendors? I’d say that the store owners’ beef is with the local government that imposes onerous regulations, not the street vendor struggling to make a better life.
In a letter to the Planning Commission, from the United States.Marine Corps.has.cited safety and security concerns regarding changes to the present code and “supports the code as currently written”.
Seriously? I’m calling for a reality check here. I think the White Folks are asking for the Brown Folks to be checked out. Well then lets do a background check on every brown skinned individual in business in town. Lets start with the Middle Eastern Sandwich Shop. Lord knows the Marine Corps needs to send them packing. They just don’t look like us. You talk about the most un-American BS ruse. Who gives a flying diddly truck what the security concerns of the base are in town. They are subordinate to civilian authority, not the other way around…. Read your Constitution.
As an established business owner in the City of Twentynine Palms, I support the present Development Code Section 19.33.060 Limitations on Hawking Ordinance. The proposed changes are incompatible with “established business use and would only harm my business.
What that means is lets keep competition out. We only need one Flower shop, one Taco Stand, one hamburger joint, lets close down all but one tattoo parlor, one nipple Piercer. We have far to many Auto Parts Stores. Let’s all watch the town die because we do not want to have progress, we don’t want innovation. We don’t want competition.
Street Vendors, peddling, and hawking has always been a way for the lower economic classes and new comers to this country, to climb the social ladder.
Major retailers like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s started out as street vendors. “Street peddler” was even an official occupation tracked by the U.S. Census until 1940, according to Alfonso Morales, an urban planning professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Pinks, Carls Jr., and even McDonald’s Started as Street Carts.
Los Angeles, 1941. Young Carl N. Karcher and his wife, Margaret, make a leap of faith and borrow $311 on their Plymouth automobile, add $15 in savings and purchase a hot dog cart.
One cart grows to four, and in less than five years, Carl’s Drive-In Barbecue opens with hamburgers on the menu. more….
“City officials are usually only looking at things cross-sectionally, not longitudinally. They’re not considering that over the long run small investments that people make in themselves and their families can sometimes turn into large paybacks in entrepreneurial activities,” says Morales. “Not always; small businesses fail all the time. But sometimes they pay great dividends.”
It is not governments job to pick winners and losers. If they have any responsibility in the free market system, it is to make sure there is a level playing field.
I am going to assume that my many business friends in town did not read or did not consider what they signed. I’m thinking that they had this letter shoved in their face and out of a need to not be brow beat just signed with out thinking of the unintended consequences of what they signed.
Here is the letter as written, that was signed by 12 Good Business folks in town.
Dan how about composing a letter, we are showing MIB this week we most likely get as many signatures as they did. Just don’t know if the non-connected citizen’s signature carries the same weight as the CC masters.
I’d like to know who the other eleven businesses are so I can spend my money elsewhere. Dan, can you put up the names of the other 11 businesses who signed on to the letter? Frankly speaking, the the intent of the letter kinda sounds like prewar Germany when good local Germans businessmen were pressuring hardworking Jews out of business out, and finally were successful.
As far as the Base is concerned, it sounds more like the Twightlight Zone. 29 doesn’t tell the Base how to run their commerce, thus the Base should keep their silly notion about how 29 runs their commerce to themselves.
No in this case Branson, we got to be bigger than that. I am personally not going to give out the names. It is desperate times and they are doing what they think will save their businesses. It is wrong and discriminatory, but jumping on a boogieman is easier than going down to city hall with pitchforks in hand and demanding government cut the red tape.
I understand where you are coming from Dan… However all I ask is you publish the letter rather than edit (or censor) it. That has not been the policy of CT.
The “boogieman” and the “pitchforks” scenario may sounds good but it non sequitur.
The readership has a right to read the letter, it’s called good journalism and responsible reporting.
OK what ever… you want to get the names and post them fine but I am not going to. I do not think it has any real advantage and would just cause hard feelings….
All I favor is a reasonable request for you to post the letter without it being censored. If you have an anterior motives for not posting the public letter, I would think the integrity of the Blog and the readership would have first priority.
CT is the alternative media for the Basin; once you begin to play this game you are playing the same game the local newspapers are playing, and playing the same game the City Council is playing.
Lest I repeat myself:
- “…anterior motives…” – ?
You mean, as opposed to your posterior motives?
@ Dan:
A current Poll in the Desert Trail ask its readers, “Where do you get your political news?”
Newspapers…….. 5%
Radio…………. 14%
Television…….. 22%
Internet………. 59%
http://www.hidesertstar.com/the_desert_trail/
So, Dan, give them unbiased news.
And like I said…. You are free to list the names as you wish. It does not fit into my story line. I do not feel it would serve the story nor would it do anything to gain sympathy for street vendors. Listing the names would be snarky and petty.
The content of the letter was all that was important to the story, who signed it was immaterial to the analysis of its content.
Ben, How many people took the poll? The papers have stopped putting the number of respondents. See the Star for Saturday that says 44% will vote for Ramos. (BTW. Ramos was at the CC meetig Tuesday.)
I swear Larry, That dude had so much foo foo water splashed on him it made me have an asthma Attack!
I had get out of the room so I could breath.