Roadside Stalls

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31188, 12 October 1966, Page 16

Roadside Stalls

The Fruit and Produce Merchants’ Federation conference in Invercargill showed an understandable distaste for the roadside sale of fruit and vegetables. It resolved on two courses which implied legal restraints on the operation of roadside stalls. One course is to ensure that stalls do not create traffic hazards. This is a worthy cause, although it recalls an unhappy attempt four years ago to encumber the Statute books with some unnecessary legislation. The Public Works Amendment Bill of 1962 originally included a provision to make it an offence to stop or park a vehicle on a road to sell goods to the travelling public without the consent of “ the controlling “ authority ”, This clause in the bill was very properly dropped. The Opposition questioned the need for generally restrictive legislation to deal with occasional offences and also showed that ample legislation existed to prevent the dangerous parking of vehicles whether or not they were stopped to sell goods. If the law attempts to deal with the siting of stalls or shops—and it would be difficult to distinguish between the two—it is likely to stray on to very shaky ground. Traffic law generally concerns vehicles and drivers. It does not attempt to interfere with the siting of businesses that may attract drivers. It would probably get into a dreadful tangle if it tried to determine whether persons should do an ordinary form of business on their own property because of the possible behaviour of their customers.

The conference was on safer ground when it decided to draw attention to growers who trade in produce other than their own. The Shops and Offices Act applies to “ any building or place in which goods “ are kept exposed, or offered for sale ”, and the exemption from the prescribed closing hours is extended to the sale of fruit, vegetables, and flowers if sold by the grower on the premises where they are grown. Merchants and their retail customers are right to see that the law is observed here. They would be unwise to embark on a campaign that would result only in legal humbug and the unnecessary restriction of the rights of growers and of the convenience of their customers.