Norway street vendor limited to Fridays

NORWAY — A request to add weekends to a Hawking and Peddling license was turned down by the Board of Selectmen, which said it is not granting extra days without having strict guidelines in place.

Norway resident James Howard, who sells mostly tie-dyed clothing on Main Street, put in a request to add Saturdays and Sundays to his vending schedule, but the board agreed that Fridays would have to do for now.

During the meeting, Howard said that he was under the impression that his license allowed him to set up his booth any day of the week."I didn't know it was for a certain day," he said.

Board members agreed that Howard's license, as written, would only allow him to set up his booth on Fridays through the end of October.

According to Selectman Russ Newcomb, the town would need to look at guidelines before expanding Howard's days.

Guidelines would include where the vendor is setting up and what hours they are operating, said Newcomb.

"What about the other garage sales?" asked Howard. "They have garage sales everywhere. Basically what I am is a garage sale."

"Yes, but it also is a continuous garage sale," said Newcomb, "because you have it every week."

Selectwoman Irene Millett said that it was nothing against Howard.

"We are just trying looking forward to what should be done in the future," she said. "Right now there are no guidelines, so it's difficult; if something didn't [go] the way we hoped it would, it would be difficult to stop it, so to speak."

According to Newcomb, after the town approved Howard's initial license, it received feedback that might have caused it not to approve the license in the first place "without some sort of guidelines."

Holt said that the owners of Dow's Law Office would also feel better about the license only allowing Howard to set up Fridays.

"Anything that gets people out of their cars is a good thing," said Chairman Warren Sessions, "but we need to limit the time frame of your sales."

Board members agreed to carry on with the current license.

Howard will be selling his clothing in front of Dow's Law Office on Fridays only through the end of October.

In other news, the board:

• Appointed Peter Toohey to fill the un-expired term of Steve Veazey as a library trustee.

• Approved the transfer of funds of $125 from the Department of Corrections (DOC) for the Drug Prevention Act.

• Agreed to continue with the authorization of the Grant-In-Aid for the Maine Snowmobile Program to maintain its trails through Norway.

• Discussed turning the town's ownership of the Norway Opera House over to the Norway Opera House Corp., to use historic tax credits in partnership with Norway Savings Bank to further stretch $400K in grant dollars. Tabled.