Newsstand, Inc. v. City of Philadelphia

577 F. Supp. 1576
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 24, 1984
DocketCiv. A. No. 83-3441
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 577 F. Supp. 1576 (Newsstand, Inc. v. City of Philadelphia) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Newsstand, Inc. v. City of Philadelphia, 577 F. Supp. 1576 (E.D. Pa. 1984).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

NEWCOMER, District Judge.

The plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that Section 9-205 of the Philadelphia Code, which provides for the licensing and regulation of sidewalk vendors, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Because I find that Section 9-205 is constitutional on its face and as applied, I will grant the defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint.

The allegations of the complaint, which must, of course, be accepted as true in ruling on a motion to dismiss, may be summarized as follows: The plaintiffs operate businesses on premises that they lease or own in Center City Philadelphia. They have certain rights and responsibilities with respect to the sidewalks abutting these premises.1 Sidewalk vendors operate on the sidewalks abutting the plaintiffs’ busi[1577]*1577nesses without obtaining the consent of the plaintiffs. The vendors’ operations harm the plaintiffs’ businesses by, among other things, impairing access to the businesses, blocking public view of advertising and displays in the plaintiffs’ establishments, impairing customer parking, causing trash to accumulate on the sidewalk, and producing obnoxious odors. These vendors are licensed by the defendants pursuant to the provisions of Section 9-205. The defendants know or have reason to know that the vendors will set up their operations on the plaintiffs’ property without obtaining the plaintiffs’ consent.

The plaintiffs contend that Section 9-205 is unconstitutional on its face, in that it deprives them of property without due process of law, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. A cursory reading of the section demonstrates the error of the plaintiffs’ position.

Section 9-205 of the Philadelphia Code2 is clearly an effort by the City of Philadelphia to deal with some of the problems engendered by sidewalk vending, primarily sidewalk congestion and litter. Section 9-205 regulates the size of the stands used by vendors and the placement of these stands on the sidewalk. It prohibits all vending on certain major thoroughfares and requires vendors to provide trash receptacles and to clean up their areas when they leave. Finally, in what is obviously an effort to facilitate enforcement of Section 9-205’s substantive provisions, vendors are required to obtain a license before vending. Prerequisites to obtaining a license are minimal, and are clearly designed only to aid in the identification of the vendors.3 An applicant for a vending license must pay a small fee, provide two small photographs of himself, provide proof of identity and address, a physical description of himself, a brief description of the goods to be sold, and the identity of his employer, if any.

The plaintiffs claim that this modest attempt to regulate sidewalk vendors is constitutionality unsound because it does not require license applicants to specify the location at which they intend to vend, to obtain the permission of the owners of the property abutting the proposed location, or limit the vending to that location.

While the plaintiffs are correct that Section 9-205 has no such requirements, this failure does not render it unconstitutional.4 Section 9-205 as it is written, and as it has been construed, clearly does not deprive the plaintiff of any property interest. This section does not explicitly or by any reasonable implication grant licensed vendors the right to vend on private property over the objections of the property owner.5 Furthermore, by its own terms, it does not in any way detract or add to the pre-existing rights of abutting property holders.6

[1578]*1578Abutting property holders possess the same right to move against vendors operating on their property without permission as they do against any other trespasser. At least one Pennsylvania court has enjoined a vendor from further operations on the sidewalk abutting the premises of a non-consenting property owner and rejected the argument that Section 9-205 granted the vendor an entitlement to vend wherever he pleased. That court stated that it was

constrained to reject the contention of defendant that Section 9-205 constitutes a general grant by the municipality of permission to vendors to set up stands on public sidewalks regardless of the objections of the owner of the abutting property; we read the section to have been intended merely as a restriction placed by the municipality on the potential blockage of public passage on sidewalks inherent in the existence of sidewalk stands. As such, the section is merely a regulation by the municipality, issued incident to its police powers in the interest of protecting the public safety, and this restriction on the use of sidewalks is in addition to, rather than an eradication of, the aforementioned right of an owner of abutting property to prevent a conflicting private use of his land.

City of Philadelphia v. Street, 63 D. & C.2d 709, 713-14 (C.P.Phila.1974).

Thus it is extremely hard to understand just what it is that plaintiffs claim has been taken away from them by Section 9-205. If, for instance, this Court were to strike down Section 2-905, it is difficult to see how the plaintiffs’ position would in any way be improved. The result would simply be that there would be no general regulations governing sidewalk vending. The plaintiffs would have no remedy for vendor trespasses that they do not now have, and would have lost whatever protection is provided by Section 9-205. Because I cannot see how Section 9-205 has deprived the plaintiffs of any property interest, I do not see how Section 9-205 can be found to be in violation of due process.7

The plaintiffs’ allegation that the existence of Section 2-905 may encourage vendors to trespass on plaintiffs property does not enable plaintiffs to withstand the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs’ reliance on Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 87 S.Ct. 1627, 18 L.Ed.2d 830 (1967) to support this position is misplaced. In Reitman the Supreme Court found that a California constitutional amendment prohibiting any agency of the state from interfering with the decision of an individual to sell, lease, or to refuse to sell or lease real property to any other individual violated the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court examined the history of the amendment and its effect on preexisting California law. It concluded, as had the California Supreme Court, that the amendment was not simply a repeal of existing laws forbidding private racial discrimination, but rather that it was a law clearly intended to authorize racial discrimination in housing. The Court held that the amendment so significantly involved the state of California with invidious discrimination that it was rendered unconstitutional.

As has previously been noted Section 2-905 does not authorize trespassing by vendors nor can it rationally be said that the purpose of Section 2-905 is to permit or encourage vendors to trespass on private property.8

[1579]*1579One final argument of the plaintiffs must be addressed.

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Bluebook (online)
577 F. Supp. 1576, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/newsstand-inc-v-city-of-philadelphia-paed-1984.