The City’s Crackdown on Traveling Salesmen
In 1886, Seattle’s City Council passed a strict licensing ordinance to curb 'peddling' and hawking, requiring vendors to pay steep daily fees or face jail time.
On January 12th, Mayor Yesler approved Ordinance No. 499, 'An ordinance to license, tax and regulate auctioneers, hawkers and peddlers.' When the ordinance was under discussion, Councilman Furth remarked that if its provisions were not enforced more rigidly than others, there was little use in passing it. Under the new law, every peddler and hawker in Seattle must obtain a license and pay specific rates: $10 per day for selling jewelry, drugs, or fine goods, and $1 per week for fish or game. Producers of farm goods are charged $1 for three months. Any person caught peddling without a license faces a fine of up to $100 or imprisonment for up to thirty days. The ordinance notably excludes newsboys and wholesale commercial travelers. Licenses are restricted to U.S. citizens or those who have declared their intent to become one. Indians are explicitly exempted from the provisions of this ordinance.
“If its provisions were not enforced more rigidly than the provisions of the other ordinances, there was little use in passing it.”
Today’s debates over food truck permitting and street vending regulations echo these 1886 tensions. Much like the 19th-century focus on 'protecting' established storefronts from mobile competitors, modern Seattle continues to balance the needs of brick-and-mortar merchants with the economic survival of informal street vendors.
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