Street Peddlers Defeat Seattle’s Restrictive Ordinance
A municipal court judge rules that a city ordinance banning fruit and vegetable street vendors is unconstitutional and void.
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The peddling ordinance has been declared invalid by Judge Glasgow of the municipal court, and the fruit and vegetable peddlers of the city are in high spirits. The judge's decision was rendered in the cases of Charles Robbins and Joe Pincus, who were arrested for violating the ordinance, effectively setting up a test case for the council's act. The ordinance prohibited the peddling of all goods except milk, ice, bread, and newspapers within the business portions of the city. The peddlers argued it was invalid as it infringed upon their rights as citizens and discriminated in favor of commission merchants. The merchants claimed the law protected them from out-of-town competition, but Judge Glasgow ruled that the right to sell the products of one's labor is a property right protected by the constitution. He found that the ordinance was unreasonable and created unfair privileges by favoring specific trades over others, thereby violating both the city charter and the state constitution.
“The right to sell the products of one's labor without unreasonable and unnecessary interference and restraint is a property right.”
This 1893 battle over who has the right to vend on city streets echoes modern-day disputes in Seattle over food truck regulations and the role of street vendors in the downtown economy. The tension between established brick-and-mortar interests and small-scale mobile entrepreneurs remains a fixture of the city's civic arguments.
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