City officials on Monday resolved to color-code permits for roadside merchants in an effort to ensure better compliance.
Officials hope the color-coded permits will be more visible so that police and code enforcement officers can determine which merchants do and do not have permits.
The Pine Bluff municipal code requires merchants who sell goods from vehicles, tents, tables, trailers and other non-brick-and-mortar locations to obtain and display permits to transact business within the city. Most frequently the permits apply to people selling produce, such as watermelons or tomatoes.
The permits, called transient merchant permits, cost $12 per day or $50 per month. They require a written letter of permission from the owner of the property the merchant intends to operate on. They can be obtained at the city collector’s office at Pine Bluff City Hall.
Sharon Johnson, director of the city collector’s department, told the City Council’s Administration Committee on Monday that some roadside merchants avoid getting permits by setting up their operations on weekends or after 5 p.m., when they know city employees are off work. Others may not know they are required to obtain a permit to sell goods in the city.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The council’s Administration Committee is comprised of Aldermen Lloyd Holcomb, Jr. and Steven Mays and Alderwoman Thelma Walker.
There was discussion at the meeting of requiring roadside merchants to sell from the city’s farmers market. Walker said that would not be a good idea.
“[The merchants] don’t all want to be at the farmers market,” Walker said. “Because a lot of the traffic is on Blake Street, where people will be passing by. ‘Oh, let me get some peas, oh, let me get a watermelon.’ But the farmers market is not an impulse buy.”
Walker felt that color-coding the permits would eliminate much of the confusion.
“I think sometimes people don’t think they are intentionally breaking the law,” Walker said. “When they have something, [they think,] ‘I’m going to put this out here and sell it.’ That’s different from a whole trailer load of watermelons. But in the meantime, if you tell them that you have to have a permit next time, and if I come through here again and you don’t have a permit, I’m going to write you up.”