York’s Conservative Group will put forward a motion at next week’s meeting of Full Council seeking a way forward to allow the city to regulate the aggressive activities of ‘chuggers’: charity fundraisers seeking direct debit subscriptions, and ‘gag mag’ sellers,: for-profit sellers of joke magazines, usually with ‘adult content’ .
Cllr. Chris Steward who is proposing the motion said: “We support charity fundraising in York and therefore it is vital we do not tar every party collecting on the streets of York with the same brush.
We object to intrusive and high-pressure tactics which detract from visits to the city centre, and both chuggers and gag mag sellers have been called out on this behaviour on numerous occasions.
“We know that council officers have looked at this problem in the past, but the issues remain and indeed seem to get worse each summer. It is very difficult for officers to put together effective regulation because of a lot of street sellers and pedlars are regulated by national acts, some going back to the 19th century.
“Again, although some of this legislation has been amended it does not appear to be fit for purpose for the streets of York, with residents and visitors alike unpleasantly harried even after saying they want to be left alone.
“We are therefore asking officers to take another look at the regulations to see what can be done and to liaise with Make it York and York BID as well.
“We are also looking for cross-party support for CYC to lobby the Government for changes to national laws to allow cities like York to regulate the activities of rogue street-vendors and charity workers without penalising other traders and charity fundraisers who aren’t part of the problem.”