Curbs on hawkers may ease

Press, 8 March 1978, Page 20

Curbs on hawkers may ease

Christchurch hawkers should be allowed to sell their goods outside a limit at least 200 metres from the nearest retail shop selling similar products, says the City Council’s health and general committee. That would cut the present city restriction in half, and bring it in line with restrictions in the Waimairi and Paparua counties, the committee said. “I think it should be uniform,” said the chairman (Sir Robert Macfarlane). ‘‘l think 400 m is a dickens of a long way.”

The council’s present restriction for this type of hawker, which includes icecream vans, was imposed in 1966. A letter from the local branch of the Confectionery and Mixed Businessmen’s Association opposed a change to that limit, saying that business conditions generally were not good and that it was unreasonable to allow competition from hawkers. Councillor D. C. Close said he opposed the recommendation because the council had some responsibility to protect the small businessman, even though it could not, from a strict legal standpoint, protect him from competition. "The 200 m easily becomes 150, and that becomes 100,” he said. “It has to be policed; properly.”