08 November 2007

Newspaper Rack Issue

 


There are 13 racks in this picture. A few of them are empty, and a few are knocked over with their contents spilled onto the sidewalk.

I remember councilmember John Mirlisena, in the early 1990's making war against these unsightly boxes. He lost in court because the law he wrote dicriminated against advertising circulars in favor of real newspapers.

Council needs to revisit the issue. I know this borders on being a trivial issue. I almost wonder if it is worth blogging about. But council should spend a little time on this issue, and resolve it once and for all.

Maybe the fees for the permits should be raised, maybe a uniform box should be supplied. Maybe the vendors should be required to supply a box that meets a certain standard. Maybe the best solution is to copy whatever it is Columbus did, they seem to have uniform boxes.

Summary of the 1993 Supreme Court Case: City of Cincinnati vs Discovery Network.

8 comments:

Dan said...

Mike: I don't like them either. And I too blogged about it last month.
http://queencitysurvey.blogspot.com/2007/10/tarnished-crown.html

CityKin said...

Dan;
Before I wrote this, I knew I had just read something about it, but couldn't remember where. Thanks, you have some good info on you post. I just happened to walk past the ones that were tipped-over a few days ago with my camera.

Anonymous said...

Charleston, SC has a nice way of handling the newspaper racks. I think it's similiar to what Columbus has. I even took a picture of the newspaper racks in Charleston.

Randy Simes said...

I don't think this is at all trivial. This is something that should be looked at; possibly in the form of an overall street furniture plan/design.

This could easily go hand-in-hand with getting rid of those hideous bench billboards used at bus stops. It would be great if the city could clean up its streetscapes with a street furniture plan/design.

5chw4r7z said...

Was this near Servatii's Saturday morning? I remember stopping and staring and shaking my head.
I'm going to start emailing our councilpersons about this.

here's the html code, paste it into your posting for an easy email button.

Email City Council

Well I guess it doesn't give you the code, I'll email it to anyone who wants it.

CityKin said...

Yes, this was at court and Walnut Saturday morning, but happens quite a bit.

Beach said...

I saw that as well and looked for a downtown "ambassador" to fix this. I couldn't find any. DO they do anything anymore except talk on their cell phones?

Anonymous said...

Other cities have limited the placement of racks and the improvement is unbelievable, less litter, more sidewalk room - in some areas you can't walk to abreast with hte racks in the way. I love picking up my free weelkly papers, but I don't think we need racks on nearly every corner.