Council unlikely to change vending bill

The ordinance, which would restrict vending on and near Penn's campus, will probably become law in a few weeks. The proposed University-backed bill that would regulate vending on and around campus will leave this week's City Council hearings largely unchanged, clearing the way for it to be enacted within the next few weeks, a councilman said yesterday. Yesterday, in a relatively tame, one-hour conclusion to Tuesday's contentious, eight-hour hearings, city officials testified on the need for three technical amendments to the bill whose fates remained unclear as of last night. "[The ordinance] will come out of Council tomorrow with only some amendments," at-large Councilman Frank Rizzo said yesterday. Leaders of the vendor and consumer groups that spent most of last year fighting to substantially modify or kill the bill expressed a sense of defeat at the likelihood that the bill will pass largely unchanged. "We lost," University City Vendors Alliance Chairperson Scott Goldstein said. It remains unclear exactly what changes will be adopted when Council meets at 9 a.m. today to vote on the amendments and whether to keep the bill alive by reporting the legislation out of committee. At the hearings Tuesday, most Council members indicated that they clearly favor the controversial ordinance, which would ban food trucks and carts on many streets and sidewalks around campus, prohibit electrical generators a year after its enactment and establish a Vending Advisory Board to approve vendors for specific sites. Council President John Street will amend the bill so it goes into effect July 31 instead of the original April 30, said Carol Scheman, Penn's vice president for government, community and public affairs. Also, for the first time, the University yesterday guaranteed in writing its separate plans to build food plazas on its property to hold some vendors displaced by the ordinance, she added. Those five plazas are scheduled to be completed by August 15, Penn Managing Director of Economic Development Jack Shannon said recently. In the only heated moment of yesterday's hearings, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who introduced the ordinance in February, snapped at Richard Dickson of the Philadelphia Parking Authority when he suggested that the city charge vendors a $2,700.50 annual fee in designated vending spots instead of using meters. "[Blackwell] was very unhappy about the 11th-hour presentation of the amendments," Rizzo said. Blackwell did not return repeated calls for comment yesterday. Also yesterday, Fran Egan, commissioner of the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections, suggested Council adopt two amendments: one, to remove the Vending Advisory Board -- the body that would assign vendors specific sites -- from the ordinance; and two, to prohibit vendors from transferring licenses among themselves. Egan claimed that one vendor had no right to sell or transfer a license for the use of a piece of public property to another party and that only the mayor could establish the Vending Advisory Board. Street expressed his concern yesterday that by allowing transferability, vendors with high levels of seniority could lose out on prime vending locations. Goldstein said he hopes the Council will reject the proposed transferability amendment. "[Blackwell] fought for us to be able to resell [the licenses], and I hope she stands by the fight," Goldstein said. If the Council votes to report the bill out of committee as expected, the body will vote on final passage in two or three weeks. With the hearing process coming to a close, members of the UCVA and the Penn Consumer Alliance seemed widely disillusioned with the entire process, noting that it seemed that the University was getting exactly what it had wanted all along. "[Councilwoman] Augusta Clark told us that Penn is an 800-lb. gorilla," said PCA member Jason Eisner, an Engineering graduate student. "For whatever reason, Council seems happy to let the gorilla do what it wants." PCA spokesperson Matt Ruben echoed Eisner's sentiments. "The City Council decided to basically leave the University alone in terms of what they wanted," said Ruben, a School of Arts and Sciences graduate student. But Councilwoman Donna Miller defended the hearings and her decision to support the ordinance. "The public hearings are a good, open process," Miller said. Miller said that she recognizes vending is a "difficult issue," but explained that "the fact that vending at Penn is on private property made a difference." Shannon, the University's top economic development official, maintained that the ordinance represents a compromise, despite the perceptions of the PCA and UCVA. "What came across to the City Council was that the ordinance crafted by Councilwoman Blackwell truly presents a compromise that balances the interests of all parties," he explained. Despite his disappointment, Eisner pledged to remain involved in the process. "If vendors start going out of business, which we think is very likely, we'll go right back to City Council." The controversy over the ordinance began last May when Penn submitted its first proposal to Blackwell. In the face of protests from students, faculty members, staff, vendors and other community members, University officials withdrew the proposal in mid-June. Many hours of negotiations led to the current proposal.

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