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Pasco Roadside Newspaper Vendors Get A Pass On Ban

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By CARL ORTH

The Suncoast News

Published: January 31, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Dozens of newspaper street vendors made some headlines this week by protesting possible changes in Pasco County rules.

Vendors from across the county passionately testified before the Pasco County Commission, which has been considering a ban on roadside solicitation.

The ranks of protesters included one New Port Richey woman pregnant with twins, who explained how she and many others rely on the income from Sunday newspaper sales at street corners.

"We got the message loud and clear," Commissioner Ted Schrader said after listening to numerous pleas. "I don't want to put more people out of work."

Commissioners pledged to exempt newspaper street vendors from any changes in regulations on roadside sales. The possible changes had been intended to control street-corner solicitors for charitable groups who dart in and out of traffic, Commissioner Pat Mulieri said.

The vendors have become a familiar sight in medians and on corners at intersections, selling Sunday editions of daily newspapers. Newspaper vendors are trained and wear safety vests, one newspaper wholesaler said.

Wendy Burress of Holiday pushed her baby in a stroller up to the podium at the county commission meeting.

A ban on street-corner sales of newspapers would only add to the Pasco unemployment rate, Burress said. After failing to find a job herself, she and her husband turned to vending to help them survive. Seven people in her neighborhood are making a living hawking, she said.

"Why would you want to stop people from helping themselves?" Burress asked commissioners. "Would you like more homeless, more hungry, more jobless, more foreclosures?

"That's why men and women soldiers are dying in Iraq is for my freedom to stand on that right of way," she said.

"That's where I'm allowed to be."

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