U. delays enforcement of vending rules

Last-minute details keep vendors on the streets until Monday, officials say. The Philadelphia city ordinance regulating food vending in University City was supposed to come into effect like a lion on Tuesday, but instead went out like a lamb. Due to delays in paperwork and construction, the long-awaited regulations prohibiting street and sidewalk vending on most of the streets near campus will not be enforced until Monday at the earliest, Penn officials said yesterday. The University-backed ordinance passed City Council unanimously on April 23 and was supposed to take effect August 4 -- 90 days after being signed into law by Mayor Ed Rendell. Most of the approximately 100 vendors in and around campus will be moved due to the ordinance, which Penn has been seeking to pass since last summer. But to accommodate some of the displaced vendors, Penn agreed to construct five fresh air food plazas on University-owned land, which together will hold 11 food trucks, 24 carts and 12 stands. The plazas are located at 40th and Walnut streets, next to Meyerson Hall at 34th and Walnut streets, at 37th and Walnut streets between Gimbel Gymnasium and a parking garage, at 34th and Spruce streets near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and at 33rd and South streets by Franklin Field. Those vendors remaining in street locations are being dealt with by the city's department of Licenses and Inspections. According to Jack Shannon, the University's top economic development official, L&I; has notified all of the street vendors of their future locations. "It's the beginning of the final shake-up," Shannon said of the upcoming reshuffling of vending locations. "The final D-Day is Monday. The new framework will be in place." The nearly week-long delay in implementing the ordinance came as a result of insurance regulations and conflicts over several of the clauses in the vendors' food plaza leases. "I'm a little upset," said Scott Goldstein, former head of the University City Vendors Alliance. "Jack Shannon acted as an empowered individual in the negotiations process. I think he made promises that he would not be able to keep." One of the most contentious issues was the duration of the lease. Both sides agreed to an initial five-year deal in which the vendors would be charged a nominal monthly fee of $1 for the lighting, electricity and sanitation services provided in the food plazas. But while Goldstein said Shannon pledged that the lease would be renewable for additional five-year blocks, the final proposal only allows the lease to be renewed for one year at a time. "We never promised [a five-year renewal]," said Carol Scheman, Penn's vice president of government, community and public affairs. "I also quite frankly didn't think that was a good idea." Scheman added that both the University and the individual vendors will have the option not to continue a lease after every one-year term and that the shorter length of time was "much more common." Another sticking point was the rents the vendors would have to pay after the five-year lease expired. According to Goldstein, Penn will charge each truck $400 a month, each cart $300 a month and each non-food vendor $200 a month for the right to vend from University land. Trucks and carts remaining on city-owned street locations will be charged $2,700 a year and no money at all for rent, respectively, beginning this summer. Goldstein said that the University promised to charge the food plaza vendors "a cost not more than what vendors are paying on the streets." "That was a lie," he said. "They have no understanding but they do it anyway." Scheman countered that the rents are indeed reasonable. "The idea is that it should not be in any way unaffordable or unreasonable, but there should be some market accountability," she said. But with the ordinance ready to be put into effect, University officials are looking toward a period of transition as vendors and their customers adjust to the regulations. "Remember move-in day?" Scheman asked. "That's what it's going to be like. We're prepared for a lot of hand-holding." Even so, Goldstein -- whose own truck will be moving to the 33rd Street food plaza -- feels betrayed after more than a year of negotiations. "[Shannon] can lie and screw us because [City Councilwoman] Jannie Blackwell submitted the ordinance to City Council before the lease was in place," he said. "It was the biggest disaster in this entire process."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.