Philly Delays Plan on Newspaper Boxes

By: (AP) A plan to remove some newspaper boxes from downtown street corners was put on hold, the mayor's office said Monday.

The city had planned this week to start enforcing a 3-year-old law regulating the distribution of newspaper boxes on street corners. Under the ordinance, boxes for papers that don't publish at least once a week would have been moved to a mid-block location.

"We were contacted by smaller publishers who felt that they would be thrown out of the competition on certain corners or that it would infringe on their First Amendment rights, which is not the case at all," mayoral spokeswoman Luz Cardenas said. "We want to make sure that the small publishers' issues would be addressed."

The ordinance, which City Council passed in 1999, targets boxes that hinder sidewalk safety or are not properly maintained by their owners.

The new rules had gone largely unnoticed, and some boxes have been chained to fire hydrants or block handicap access, Cardenas said.

Cardenas said the number of newspaper boxes in Center City has increased since 1995 by about 75%.