A vending revision downtown

Falls reduces areas where vendors can work as concessionaires gear up for tourists

By Denise Jewell/jewelld@gnnewspaper.com
Niagara Gazette

May 03, 2007

Downtown vendor Earl Robinson has already bought hundreds of Niagara Falls T-shirts and sunglasses to gear up for the summer tourist season.

The military veteran and Niagara Falls native had planned to spend his second summer on Niagara Street selling to tourists.

But a new change in the city’s vending policies, he believes, could put his business at risk.

Niagara Falls leaders are taking steps to enforce a provision in the city charter to restrict vending outside of a nine-story glass building at Rainbow Boulevard South and Niagara Street that has been the subject of ongoing court proceedings and was the target of complaints about outdoor vendors two years ago.

City Administrator Bill Bradberry said the city has suspended any vending on the Niagara Street and Rainbow Boulevard sidewalks outside of One Niagara for safety and fairness reasons.

“There have been some substantial, serious situations there with pedestrian flow,” Bradberry said.

Damon DeCastro, the city’s acting corporation counsel, cited homeland security concerns because of the area’s proximity to the Rainbow Bridge. The city is not, however, limiting vending in all downtown areas and is not excluding a sidewalk across from the Rainbow Bridge near the Twist O’ the Mist.

DeCastro cited a section of the city’s vending ordinances that states the “city shall prohibit vendors from selling on specified public ways if it determines such prohibitions are necessary for the protection of public health and safely.”

But Robinson says the policy change will cause him to lose a prime vending location. He believes the sidewalks are actually safer than they have been in recent years because of a state Department of Transportation project last summer to widen the sidewalks.

Robinson, who has been selling T-shirts and sunglasses downtown for two years, believes the city’s decision unfairly favors indoor vendors who work in One Niagara, a glass building that once housed the headquarters for Occidental Chemical.

“I want to know what the safety hazard is. It’s brand new. There’s no construction. They’ve widened the sidewalks,” Robinson said. “I just don’t understand why it’s unsafe.”

Robinson is one of more than a dozen vendors who hawk everything from sunglasses to samosas on city-owned walkways during the summer. They are controlled by a patchwork of city laws, contracts and permits that provide the rules and locations that peddlers must follow, but many work through leases given to operate the East and West pedestrian malls.

A map given out in City Hall with vending permits shows 10 blocks downtown where vendors are not permitted to set up, including the two pedestrian malls and the areas near the Seneca Niagara Casino.

The city’s ordinances describe 13 locations where vending is allowed in the city’s right of way, including the southeast corner of Rainbow Boulevard South and Niagara Street, but does not provide a list where vendors are excluded for safety reasons. The list was last amended in 1997.

Frank Parlato Jr., who operates One Niagara on Rainbow Boulevard South, said he believes the new decision to suspend vending on sidewalks directly outside of his building stemmed from concerns from the city’s Planning Board about the appearance of vending tables and tents he operated in 2005.

The city cited Parlato for allowing vendors to operate outside his building that year, as well a handful of other code violations. Those citations are now before a Lockport City Court judge, who will hear a motion to dismiss the charges Tuesday.

“I thought it looked a little festive, but I can appreciate that that’s what people preferred not to see outside of the state park,” Parlato said. “The city specifically asked me not to conduct any more honky tonk around my property.”

Parlato last year allowed vendors to sell food, beverages and souvenirs inside his building for a commission and has been working with building inspectors to receive a new certificate of occupancy to open the first floor of the building again to the public.

Other downtown concessionaires said they do not mind the new policy. Many of the vendors pay a commission and work directly with Como Restaurant owner Louis Antonacci, whose catering firm has vending rights to the city’s West Pedestrian Mall between the Niagara Falls State Park and the former Wintergarden.

Under a five-year agreement he signed in 2002 with then-Mayor Irene Elia, Antonacci’s company also has the “right of first refusal” for other concession opportunities the city might offer downtown between Prospect Street, Buffalo Avenue, Rainbow Boulevard South and Niagara Street.

In exchange for the vending rights, Antonacci pays the city an annual fee of up to $15,000, as well as 5 percent of gross revenue from the site. In 2005, the city received $12,500 from the lease.

Antonacci did not return several voice messages left during the last week for this story. When reached twice by cell phone, he deferred questions to a later time but then could not be reached again.

Spray-paint artist Dave Siddens has worked with Antonacci for five years to sell images of Niagara Falls and colorful landscapes on the West Pedestrian Mall. The California native can make anywhere from $100 to $700 a day and at the end of the summer he pays a commission to Antonacci’s company.

The new policies, Siddens said, do not affect his business.

“I’ve had a great deal down there,” Siddens said. “He gave me the chance to set up and do my thing, and it’s an advantage for him because it keeps the people down there.”