It’s been more than 10 years since John Zapantis first sought permission to sell street newspapers on a corner in St. Albert.
In 2003, he told the Gazette he was seeking a permit to sell the paper Our Voice in front of St. Albert Place.
Now a writer and media relations co-ordinator for Alberta Street News, he’s still hoping to gain the necessary permits to be able to vend here.
Alberta Street News is printed monthly and offers vendors – often living on the margins – the chance to make some money by selling the paper.
Zapantis is hoping that news vendors will be included in the planned mobile vendor bylaw. A pilot held in 2015 focused specifically on food trucks.
He appeared in front of city council at its Oct. 26 meeting to plead for just that, and was told that recommendations coming back later this year will include a full spectrum of vendors.
“I feel we should be given a permit,” Zapantis said at the meeting. He’d be the one coming to St. Albert to sell the paper personally, as he has access to a vehicle, which many of the other vendors do not.
He was disappointed that the pilot had focused just on food trucks instead of other vendors. He appeared in front of council in the summer of 2012 to pitch council on the idea of changing bylaws to provide for inclusiveness of all vendors in the city.
Joan Barber, the city’s manager of business retention and expansion, confirmed last week that a report on the mobile vendor bylaw will be coming back to council on March 21 and she believes the recommendations will explore a variety of different kind of vendors.
She said for Zapantis to get a business licence to sell his paper, he’d have to get a development permit first. Since he is from outside of St. Albert he’d have to pay the non-resident business licence fee, which is $669 for 2016. The resident business licence is $138 annually.
Zapantis said it appeared some additional comments from the mayor that Zapantis remembers were edited out of the video recording of the Oct. 26 meeting, but Marci Ng, a communications adviser for the city, said the web recordings are not edited or cut down.
Zapantis previously had the paper distributed in Morinville but the newspaper boxes that were being used had some mechanical issues.
He said he thinks Alberta Street News can help provide St. Albertans with a “better bird’s eye views of what vendors face as far as day to day challenges are concerned.”
The vendors of the paper shouldn’t have judgment passed on them, he said. Many could learn from getting to know the vendors.
“They’re just like any other individual,” Zapantis said. “A lot of these people have experienced a lot of hardship, and are struggling to rise above adversity … when you read on the issues then you realize that you’re not alone.”
