The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-12
FLOWER FIGHT STILL ON,
The Florists Meeting Peddler
Competition With
PeddlerS.
Members of the Association Say
the Flowers Peddled on the
Streets Are Stale.

The fight between the California Florists
and Growers Association and the street
peddlers of violets, roses and sweet-pea
blossoms continues, though different tao
tics are being employed.
There has been no discernible decrease
in the number of peddlers that peddle, and
the soft, summer-tainted breezes which
blow about the corners of Kearny, Market
and Geary streets are as redolent as ever
with the odor of Flora delicate perfume
bearers whose brilliant colors dazzle the
eve. The Florists and Growers Associa-
ton was unsuccessful in its effort to get
the Supervisors to raise the license of the
peddlers, and it has adopted the only plan
available for continuing the warfare. The
several florists constituting the association,
and they number nearly all the large deal
ers in the city, have taken peddlers' Ii
censes and sent out their own men to
compete with the professional street-corner
basket florists.
Mr.. Cassel, the secretary of the associa-
ton, who has large nursery on the San
Bruno road, and the directors approve OF
this way of competing as being the only
thing to be done until the next season OF
floral scarcity arrives, when another press
ure will be brought to bear on the Super
visors.
In speaking of the competition yester.
day G. Hassalbacher, one of the directors,
said: 1--WE believe in the good rule of live
and let live and would not wish to pre-
vent any one getting an honest living. But
it should be remembered that we have to
pay regular merchants license, store rent,
gas and fuel, and have help expenses,
while many of these peddlers live on 20
cents day and have no expenses to speak
of. You know how they get their flowers,
don't you" he continued. 'They buy
them from the growers and the florists and
get the buds and blossoms that cannot be
put up for sale to the frst-class trade in the
stores. But this is not all. You see that
basket over there" pointing to one com.
monty used by the peddlers which was be-
ing filled with bouquets of apparently fresh
and fragrant flowers.
''WelI, they look nice enough, don't
they? And you would hardly believe that
every flower in that basket is from one to
three days old. That's one of the secrets
of the trade. They are kept fresh to the
eve, but they are unfit for sale in our
stores. First, because if we sold them for
fresh flowers the lie would be found out on
us in less than six hours by the dropping
and whitening of the petals, if in fact the
dead odor did not discover the subterfuge
to the cultivated nose of the customer be-
fore he left the store. That is the way
with all the flowers peddled on the street
they are pleasing to the eye so long as the
peddler keeps them well sprinkled, but
you have often found on purchasing a
bunch of fresh-looking violets, for instance,
that the fragrance had vanished. We do
not object to the peddler if he is made to
pay a license that equalizes the COMPETE
ton, but we cannot sell against stale flow
ers without fighting them with their own
weapons-peddle the same kind of flowers
nnder the same conditionsn