A last-minute decision to adopt a new law regulating street vending may help Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Police Chief George Turner escape a fine or jail time. But lawyers for the city’s street vendors plan to continue to seek retribution against the top officials.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shawn LaGrua said Monday she would decide this week whether to find Reed and Turner in civil contempt of court for ignoring her order that allowed vendors to ply their trade.
The city has kept vendors from selling their wares for much of this year after the judge tossed out a program managed by a private company and ordered city officials to issue permits under the old law. Reed appealed that decision and had long promised a new program by the year’s end.
Now LaGrua will also decide whether a new city vending ordinance passed Monday is acceptable.
No matter the decision, the vendors will ask LaGrua to find the chief and mayor in criminal contempt and subject to a potential 20 days in jail and $500 fine, said Robert Frommer, the attorney representing the vendors.
“I have never seen an elected official act this lawlessly and brazenly before.” Frommer said. ” When the court orders you to do something, you have to do it. …He just ignored the order entirely.”
Amber Robinson, a senior assistant city attorney, presented LaGrua with a certified copy of a new city vending law that she said had been passed by the City Council and signed by the mayor within an hour of the hearing. The new law set regulations for vendors and repealed the previous vending law that LaGrua had previously ruled still held legal sway.
Reed and political allies contend vendors create a tacky and “unhygienic” environment downtown and around Turner Field. In 2009, the city gave a contract for all street vending to a Chicago shopping-mall company that established kiosks to rent to vendors. Some vendors paid as high as $20,000 annually in rent, according to city officials. In December LaGrua ruled the monopolistic agreement violated the city’s charter.
Robinson argued Monday’s council action made the civil contempt issue moot. “Of course we also assert we were never in contempt,” she said.
The city attorney argued that a 1955 law prohibited holding officials in contempt if they were appealing a court order. LaGrua asked for case law to support that position. None was forthcoming.
State Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, said in telephone interview after the hearing it was “ironic” that the mayor was relying on a segregation-era law — passed at a time when white supremacists were constructing a strategy of “massive resistance” to federal court orders — to justify failing to follow a court order.
“It is unfortunate that the mayor’s office has seen fit to be obstructionist,” Fort said. “It is reprehensible. These entrepreneurs are just trying to earn a living and they shouldn’t be subject to the vagaries of City Hall.”
Political machinations were in plain view at Monday’s council meeting. Councilman C.T. Martin and others urged the council to vote on the new public vending ordinance because the hearing before LaGrua was pending.
The new ordinance outlines everything from items vendors sell, to the design of carts and kiosks they operate, to where they can be located. It will be overseen by the Atlanta Police Department.
Frommer said the new law is riddled with problems. He highlighted a provision that a vendor cannot sell an item if a nearby store sells the product.“We have sued cities across the nation over that and the courts have repeatedly struck down that provision,” he said.
City officials, including Reed and deputy chief operating officer Hans Utz, defended the program as fair.
“This ordinance is about being fair, fair to vendors in the kiosks, fair to non-kiosk vendors and fair to small business, small entrepreneurial brick and mortar businesses,” Utz said.
In its first phase, the law would allow for 31 vendors to operate in downtown Atlanta. The second phase, city officials say, would begin early next year and 50-plus spots for carts citywide. Vendors will not be allowed to return to Five Points, a once-popular downtown location. And the proposal leaves out options near Turner Field, though vendors can sell on nearby private property.
Reed said it was “unrealistic for the city to take six months to remedy a problem that was six years in the making,” according to a statement issued last week.
“The city is acting to create a best-in-class program that prevents our public spaces from being turned into ‘swap meets’ such as the kind that existed prior to my administration’s decision to remove them,” he said.
The contract with General Growth Properties was signed during former Mayor Shirley Franklin’s administration.
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