From: backpack@access.digex.com (Stuart Reges)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Those wicked XMas criminals!
Date: 16 Dec 1992 20:24:03 GMT
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: access.digex.com

The following article appeared in the Metro section of today's Washington
Post.  I thought others might enjoy reading it, so I typed it in.

--Stuart


	       Prince William's Strict Laws Needle Tree Sellers
				by Bill Miller

If you want to sell Christmas trees in Prince William County, you'll need more
than firs and pines.  You'll need business licenses, fingerprints and
background checks on employees, and a restroom on the premises.

All of which is spoiling the holidays for Steve Davis.

Davis and his father, Jake, who run a landscaping business in Woodbridge, hoped
to make extra money this year by setting up their Christmas tree lot outside a
shopping center and selling a few hundred trees.

Until a county zoning official visited them last week and told them to get the
following or face closing:

A temporary commercial activity permit.  Cost: $125.

A business license.  Cost: $10.

For each salesman, a vendor's license requiring criminal background checks,
fingerprints, reference checks: $20 apiece (which entitles the salesman to a
laminated ID card).

"Basically what I feel like is a criminal," said Steve Davis, 32, who added
that he was dumbfounded to learn of the county's requirements.  "What did I do?
We're the good guys here."

Yesterday, county authorities reconsidered their threats to close the stand,
saying that since the Davises own a business in the county, their tree stand
does not need to conform to all the regulations governing itinerant
salespeople.

Prince William appears to take the holiday season more seriously than other
local jurisdictions.  The District and Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George's
counties all require permits to sell Christmas trees, but background checks,
fingerprinting and bathroom access are not required.

Prince William officials said their regulations are necessary to screen out
fly-by-night salespeople, who may sell crummy Christmas trees and then skip
town just as their customers are noticing terminal needle drop.

John White, the county's zoning administrator, said the county has an
obligation to protect the public from unscrupulous businesspeople.  He said the
process is not cumbersome.

"With the Christmas tree vendors, I don't even remember anything especially
problematic," he said, "Most are the same folks who come in every year."

Permanent business owners are not required to conform to the background check
regulations.

But the Davises and others questioned the need for so much red tape.

"Unless we raised a ruckus about it, they wouldn't have backed off," Steve
Davis said.  "They make it more of a hassle than it's worth doing."

Other vendors agreed.

"Fingerprints and mugshots to sell a Christmas tree?  I found it totally
weird," said Marjorie Marovelli, 59, who sells trees at a stand in Woodbridge
and complies with the regulations.  "You'd have thought we were in some Third
World dictatorship or we were selling drugs on the street.  It was emotionally
abusive to go through this."

"It's awfully inconvenient," said Arnold T. Workman, 52, who each year brings
hundreds of trees to Woodbridge from his hometown of Cadillac, Mich.

"I really believe that there are a lot of things that need more attention than
to come around and bother people selling Christmas trees," said Jake Davis, 58.
"I am adamantly opposed to doing background investigations and fingerprinting
everybody who is going to sell Christmas trees."

The family appealed to county Police Chief Charlie T. Deane, who yesterday
agreed to waive the fingerprinting and background checks because they already
own a business, Grandscapes Landscaping, elsewhere in the county.

Deane said the police no longer will insist on the review for those few tree
sellers who have other licensed businesses in the county, but will continue to
require the procedures for outsiders selling trees.  The Davises will have to
get a temporary commercial license, authorities said.

Police estimated that 40 people have licenses to sell Christmas tree in Prince
William.  Criminal records are checked for state and local offenses, and the
fingerprints are sent to a regional laboratory for review.

Deane said he will ask county authorities to reconsider their regulations of
itinerant vendors after the holidays.


p.s. I seem to remember hearing about another fly-by-night itinerant whose
     name was Kris Claus or Santa Kringle or something like that.  Do you
     suppose he'll be banned from Prince William County if he doesn't have
     his elves and reindeer provide mugshots and fingerprints (hoofprints?)?
     :-)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian