Council to review law nobody likes

Three months after the North Charleston City Council passed a law licensing roadside vendors, nobody likes it.

Not even the council.

The vendors don't like having to pay $10 every day they set up. City business license staff can barely get other work done with the daily stream of license buyers. Zoning officers have to thumb through the ordinance book to deal with wayward vendors who are setting up behind buildings, operating as part of the business whose parking lot they occupy, or, in one case, taking the wheels off the stand, putting up bricks and claiming it's a permanent structure.

The council plans to review the law at the request of Councilwoman Rhonda Jerome. Councilwoman Dorothy Williams said one constituent called her and said, "Y'all moved my crab man!" Councilman Steve Ayer renewed his call to ban roadside sellingaltogether.

"This is going to be a headache for us," he said.

Not that it hasn't been so far.

Council members went back and forth for months to pound out an ordinance before passing it 8-1 in September. The move was more than a little controversial. Roadside stands are popular impulse-buy stops for boiled peanuts, watermelon, tacos, seafood, sunglasses, and even tires. Mayor Keith Summey conceded the stands are "almost part of Southern tradition."

The stands-on-wheels have popped up all over main city roads. But vendors were setting up at the edge of public right of way, just off the road, without permission, causing what city officials considered safety and tax problems.

The law requires owners of properties where vendors set up to pay a $25 city permit. Vendors pay a $10 inspection fee for every day they set up.

"What do I think of it? You don't want my real honest opinion," said Larry Benson on Friday as his niece scooped boiled peanuts out of a pot at his stand in a parking lot on Dorchester Road. "I think North Charleston is trying to get into everybody's pocket."

Benson didn't realize the law had been passed when an officer wrote him a $500 ticket for not having a license. It was dismissed when he went to court with a paid license. He holds a full-time job and runs the stand on weekends and holidays. It helps pay for things for two nieces he is taking care of since their mother was injured in a car wreck.

Cracking down on her uncle, "that's kind of hard," said niece Lauren Heupel, 16. The city would be better off spending the money to clean up roadside litter, she said.

"That's the small man trying to survive. He's out here in the rain, cold, trying to make ends meet," "Big Ike" Green, buying two pounds of Cajun peanuts, said. "They shouldn't stop the small man from making a living."

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.