Atlanta continues to struggle to create a street vending program and on Tuesday again deferred action.
Meanwhile, the number of lawsuits over the vending issues continues to increase, a city attorney on Tuesday told the Public Safety Committee of the Atlanta City Council. The committee did approve a measure intended to help the city defend against the lawsuits.
Five months have passed since the committee passed a motion calling on Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration to present a solid recommendation for a vending ordinance. Reed’s deputy COO, Hans Utz, wants to address the committee before it passes an ordinance introduced by committee Chairperson Michael Julian Bond, Bond said Tuesday.
One resident stepped forward to say Atlanta has a long history of not addressing the issues of vending on public property. Vendors have been off the streets most of this year.
“For the last 16 years, they [the administration] have been going to bring something over,” said Atlanta resident Willie Brown. “They keep putting on the stall tactic. Jackson, Franklin, Campbell – and they still haven’t done anything about street vending.”
Street vending on public property is a hot button issue in some quadrants of the city. Advocates contend vending is a gateway to the middle class. Critics contend vending, as it had been conducted, presents an unsightly image due to the relative independence of the vendors from codes of behavior that govern other retailers.
In April, Bond expressed strong frustration with the lack of progress on getting vendors back to work:
On Tuesday, before Bond abtained from the vote to hold the proposal he drafted with councilmembers C.T. Martin and Kwanza Hall, Bond said:
The committee did comply with the administration’s request to pass an ordinance aimed at defending against the vending lawsuits. This proposal is slated to be approved by the council at its Oct. 7 meeting.
The ordinance addresses one of the issues that’s been problematic since a Fulton County Superior Court judge invalidated Atlanta’s vending ordinance in December 2012.
Some vendors, including lead plaintiff Larry Miller, contend that the judge’s ruling reinstated the city’s vending ordinance that existed before the council enacted a revision in 2008. Miller said at the committee meeting that the court ruling, by invalidating the 2008 ordinance, had the effect of replacing the ordinance it replaced.
Amber Robinson, a senior deputy city attorney, said the original ordinance is not in effect. An ordinance proposed by Councilmember Cleta Winslow would help the city’s position, Robinson said.
“This is actually just some clean up legislation that restates the previous position of the council, that the ordinance that existed before GGP (General Growth Properties) was, in fact, repealed,” Robinson said.
“The Law Department is experiencing an uptick in what we would consider to be frivolous lawsuits in this position,” Robinson said. “We’d just like the council to clarify it.”
According to Winslow’s ordinance speaks to the 2008 vending ordinance, and its location in Atlanta’s municipal code, and states:
