The Mayor Hired to Break His Own Ordinance: A Teamster's Wagon Tests a Street Law
When a Front Street hauler blocks a druggist's doorway, the teamsters make a test case of it—and retain the very mayor who signed the rule to argue it down.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
G. O. Burns, a Front street teamster, was arrested yesterday on the complaint of Korn, the druggist, for obstructing the street in front of his store with his horse and wagon. This is a test case under the recent order to enforce the ordinance passed in 1893 and signed by Mayor Ronald, which says: "No person shall keep or cause to be kept any cart, coach, dray or other vehicle on any street or avenue after having been notified by the board of public works that such vehicle is an obstruction."
The teamsters standing along Front and other streets did not comply with the order and decided to test the validity of the ordinance and agreed upon the arrest of Burns. Mayor Ronald, who signed the ordinance, has now been retained to break the validity of his own act.
“Mayor Ronald, who signed the ordinance, has now been retained to break the validity of his own act.”
Front Street is First Avenue now, and the fight over who gets to occupy a curb—haulers, shopkeepers, pedestrians—has never really left Seattle's streets. The added twist, a mayor paid to dismantle his own ordinance, is a reminder that civic law here has always been as much negotiation as rule.
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