An everyday tale of B&NES Council Bully Boys

somerset | policing | news report Wednesday September 01, 2004 13:30 by Ambrose Blimfield herblooser at yahoo dot co dot uk

A Peddlar\'s Tale A personal account by Ambrose Blimfield Publisher Hedonist Books

Introduction

Books. That\'s what we make here at Hedonist Press. It\'s all fine, everything\'s great, and thanks to the super folk at waste.uk.com we can sell them to people - especially- people on the internet, people sitting at home or in the office at computers.

But sometimes that is not enough. Blimfield, that eccentric M.D. of ours, reckons a book is not a book until its on sale in a bookshop. The only reason he\'s making books in the first place is because he\'s quite old fashioned and he still thinks its more comfortable to read bits of paper than computer screens. (Some people will never catch on to the modern world, huh?)

So old Blimfield sets out with a sales team and an armfull of books to visit his local bookshops in Bath, that oasis of culture, famed for it\'s literary associations (we even have a Jane Austen Museum, no less).

But guess what - not one bookshop in Bath was prepared to stock any of our books. When our charming head of sales paid a visit to Waterstones clutching a copy of Catacombs Of Terror!, they said they didn\'t have anyone on the premises who was authorised to make decisions on which books to stock.

How d\'ya like that? There\'s our sales manager at Waterstones in Bath with a book about Bath, published by a Bath publisher, written by a Bath author. It was typset in Bath and the furthest any of these words have been before they reach your yes in Chippenham, where the book was printed. On the counter is a copy of Bristol magazine Venue which contains a two page spread about the book. Waterstones have even got a special section of local interest books, but if you want your material included on it, you\'ve gotta get hold of someone in London. Or Edinburgh.

Our sales team was so depressed it nearly gave up the publishing business altogether in favour of a life of farming. But fortunately our sales team didn\'t give up totally. They said \"Bollocks to the buggers, let\'s just sell them ourselves! Direct to the public! Hurrah for private enterprise!\"

And so the Struggling Retailer was conceived. A mobile market stall erected on a Dutch bok-fiets (box-bike) operating on a Peddlar\'s Certificate. It seemed like a great idea, and the Hedonist sales department got the train to Bristol to buy a peddlar\'s certificate from Police .

Then we put up posters offering out retailing service to other artists, who are finding it as difficult to sell their art as well, and everything\'s groovy. Bath is a shopper\'s paradise, and The Struggling Retailer is going to be selling all the best gear in Bath; Baka Beyond CDs, Walcot Nation T-shirts and loads of other stuff. All directly to our charming cousins from abroad who have come here especially to get a slice of our culture.

Everythings fine for a few days. People laugh and smile when they see The Retailer bimbling down the road, and some people even buy stuff. Some even come back for more, and its all good fun - until Tuesday 17th August, that is.






An everyday tale of B&NES Council Bully Boys;
A Peddlar\'s Tale


A personal account by
Ambrose Blimfield
Publisher Hedonist Books

Tuesday 17th August

The Struggling Retailer sets sail from its Walcot Street base at around 11.30am. It\'s only my fourth time out this summer, so I\'m still enjoying it a lot and its sunny so I\'m looking forward to the day and I soon sell a copy of \"Awash With Ale\" by Swift & Elliott outside Nashers.

The Retailer rolls to the bottom of Walcot Street, right into Broad Street and then Green Street. We have a gentle bimble down Union Street until approached by a man. He looks as if he spends too much time under neon strip lights, and I\'m not sure but maybe he has cobwebs around his face.
The man asks me if I have a Peddlars Certificate and I tell him yes I do. He hangs around for a bit so I say \"Oh, would you like to see it?\" and he says yes. I show him it.

The man (who is wearing a stripy nylon shirt) asks me all sorts of questions, most of which are already answered by the details on my Peddlar\'s Certificate. I ask him what he\'s up to, who he is and which hairdresser does he go to? He says he\'ll tell me in a minute when he\'s finished making a note of my details.

When he has finished writing he shows me his identity card. It\'s quite plain looking, laminated, typeface is Helvetica and it has the logo of the so-called Bath & North East Somerset Council (a dull six-pointed star in blue and green, colours that don\'t go together well at all). The card says his name is Mel O\'hagan (small \'h\'). I wonder if he\'s from Bath, or whether he drives here from Devizes or somewhere just to hassle people like me who do live here. I have certainly not met him in the pub before now.

Aesthetically his identity card has all the appeal of his nylon shirt, and makes me hope I never have to carry an identity card with me too. (However all the indications are that the UK totalitarian state is now well established and I\'m just gotta learn to live with it or leave the country.)

Then he says right, now you\'ve got to stop. I say, \"Hello mate I don\'t think so\".

He says I am doing all sorts of things that contravene the conditions of my Peddlar\'s Certificate. I say, \"I\'m very sorry but I think you\'re mistaken mate\".

He says he is surprised that the people who issued my license (Avon & Somerset Police) didn\'t tell me that I wasn\'t allowed to operate like this. He makes up a list of things I\'m doing wrong including:

I\'m not allowed to have umbrellas to provide shade in the sun

My tricycle is too big.

He says I\'m not allowed to sell any of the stuff I\'m selling under a Peddlar\'s Certificate.

He says I\'m not allowed to play music ( Bath\'s world music superstars Baka Beyond were on at the time, a bargain at £12.00).
I\'m also selling T-shirts, CD\'s by Bath musicians, hand-made necklaces and books written by local authors. In fact everything I sell is made by Bath artists. It is my policy to only sell stuff made in Bath by people who live here.

He says I\'m not allowed to use pedal power to move around! How d\'ya like that? Maybe it would be ok if I had a petrol engine like you drive to work with then?
I say \"Well I\'d like to see your copy of the Peddlar\'s act 1871 mate, \'cos the copy I\'ve seen doesn\'t have any of those stupid rules in it. In fact there\'s no way the Peddlar\'s Act 1871 can have anything about pedal power in it because no-one invented the bicycle until the 1890\'s.

Mal says there\'s a copy in the library and I say well I couldn\'t find it last time I looked so can I see a copy of yours please. He says it would take you all day to read the whole act and I say that\'s fine mate I\'m a publisher. I like reading long bits of writing. He says well you\'ve got to stop trading and I say \"I don\'t think so mate, you\'re wrong. You\'re just a bully, and I\'d like to see a copy of what you\'re saying in writing\".

He says ok then I\'ll go and get you a photocopy of the Peddlar\'s Act 1871. I say great, see you later mate.

Despite my apparently calm appearance, by this time I am very tense, and can hardly write down notes about what he\'s said because I am shaking so much. Nonetheless I do make a note of what the twit has said, and head towards my friend Sue who has a pinata stall outside Dixons.

I sometimes find it difficult to deal with people who are apparently making up rules just to victimise me and consequently I find it difficult to stay calm while I\'m telling Sue what has happened. Sue is amazed at the ridiculous behaviour of the man.
I am still telling Sue what had happened when the man in the nylon shirt comes back with some bits of paper. (I guess it\'s around 12.15pm by now) He does not have a copy of the Peddlar\'s act 1871 but one laser-printed memo on BANES headed notepaper (Helvetica again I\'m afraid, with apparently random sections of it in Helvetica bold). The department concerned is called \"Environmental & Consumer Services\", the date is \"June 2004\" (funny, it feels as though it has only just been printed, so surely it should be dated \"17th August\". It is not signed, but has apparently been written by Mal O\'hagan, the man in the nylon shirt.
The memo is comprehensible in parts, but sections of it are difficult to understand or simply nonsense. For example, one paragraph reads: \"Please note that this letter will constitute official notification of the requirements outlined above\".
Eh? What does that mean I wonder.

Nonetheless there is no part of the memo that indicates I am doing anything wrong, and there is nothing in it that refers to the long list of things the man in the nylon shirt had said I was doing wrong earlier. He also has two other bits of paper for me which look as though they are abstracts from documents, the important parts of which are missing. They are essentially nonsense without the missing bits. One is apparently a photocopy of the back of a Peddlar\'s certificate and the other could be a photocopy of a page of a council document (in Times this time, random sections of it in Times bold).

Mal gets out a cheap Polaroid camera and starts taking photographs of me and the Struggling Retailer while I try and make sense of the bits of paper he\'s given me. I ask him to get my good side please, and he does, but then he gets a picture of my bad side too. The man says I am to sign his form to say I have received the document and I tell him politely to forget it mate I\'m not signing anything until I\'ve read it.

I read the bits of paper and show them to my friend Sue. I ask him what will happen if I don\'t sign his form (Helvetica again by the way. Ugh!) , will I get arrested?, and he says no I won\'t be arrested for not signing his form so I say \"Thanks mate I won\'t bother then, see ya later\".

The man and his nylon shirt leave.

By this time I am quite upset and find it difficult to concentrate on my work. In fact it takes me hours to relax after this experience. I cannot explain exactly what it feels like, but I experience physical discomfort and am very shakey as a direct result of the man\'s ridiculous, threatening and stupid behaviour. I am also somewhat concerned that I may lose my livelihood and be unable to pay my rent.

A short while later I\'m outside WH Smith, and I notice John Dowding (also from the \"Environmental & Consumer Services Department\" walking up the street past me and The Struggling Retailer. I say \"Oh, Hi John, have you got a minute, I\'m being pissed about by one of your staff\" and he says \"No, I can\'t stop now I\'m going to a meeting...\" and scurries up Union Street towards Carphone Warehouse or somewhere.

It is unfortunate that Dowding was too busy to stop and talk to me about what was going on. I wonder what is so important about the meeting he is going to. I know John from another job I once had as a rickshaw rider because he put the rickshaw operation out of business too. If you have ever wondered why Cycles Maximus tricycles don\'t operate in Bath any more despite being so popular in London and Edinburgh, it is because John Dowding\'s department of the increasingly deranged BANES \"Council\" has told us that we are not allowed to operate here. Apparently rickshaws were threatening the livlihoods of all our hard-working taxi drivers! Yep, it\'s true. Next time you sit in the back of one of our city\'s fabulous taxis, perhaps in the back seat of a Ford Mondeo or a Mercedes Benz, have look at the driver\'s flabby neck and try and work out just how he thinks a pedal-powered trike is going to dent his mortgage repayments.

Later I remember that Dowding used to hang out in the Hat & Feather (back in the good old days when it was kicking pub) have a few beers, and then go up to the Hub Club for some acid house or something. I wonder what he does in the evenings now. I know he doesn\'t go to the Hub anymore because his colleagues at BANES put that out of business too.

I have almost regained my composure when I see a couple of cops heading towards me. From their body language I can tell they are interested in me, and sure enough the more masculine of the two asks me if I have a Peddlar\'s Certificate. I say \"Wow I could really do with a friend around at the moment\", but I don\'t know anyone nearby. I ask bystanders if they can help and listen to what this police wants to say to me. A lovely woman comes along and says yes she will, asks if I am allright and I say I\'m too shakey to write, can you write down what this police says to me. She does. I think her name was Kate. So then I say yes, I have got a Peddlar\'s license and he tells me \"Ok mate you\'ve got to stop trading\" . I say \"Hello mate but I think you\'re mistaken\", and he says \"No, It\'s a new rule, the council made it up this morning - from now on peddlars are not allowed to trade in Bath\". He is not specific. He is vague. It sounds as if he\'s making it up as he goes along, but as far as I could tell from his obscure police-talk he seemed to be saying that I was not allowed to be a peddlar here simply because the council had decided that this morning.

He said they had told everyone else with a Peddlar\'s license to go away too. He says I am in breach of conditions of my Peddlar\'s Certificate because I had a \"semi-permanent\" stall. I say \"Don\'t be ridiculous mate, something is either permanent or not. Nothing can be \'semi-permanent\', its either one thing or the other\". The more female of the police laughs a little at this, and I notice she\'s quite attractive in a way. Later on in the pub I wonder if the cops will ever try and get a female police to chat me up in a bar in order so she can arrest me for something. My mate laughs tells about someone who once shagged a police round the back of Goldiggers in Chippenham. She was apparently off-duty at the time, and he slapped her ass while they did it. That was when he found out, that was when she said \"Stop it, I\'m a police\".

The cops tell me they have made all the other peddlars piss off too. I just stay where I am. As I understand it, I am still allowed to be there, just not allowed to trade anything with anyone. The cops tell me I\'ve got to go and see Mr. O\'hagan (the man in the nylon shirt) and tell me where his office is. I guess I\'m just supposed to go there with £150 like the people who pay for a static street traders license. I ask the cops if it will be alright if I just wedge them up, and how much do they want?

Later we went to Mr. O\'hagan\'s office, but guess what - he was out! What a surprise! It wouldn\'t matter anyway if I could afford £150 a month for a Street Trader\'s License because I heard that there are already nearly 100 people on the waiting list for places. I consider various options like getting Sue to sell my stuff for me if anyone wants anything, but that idea too silly. I later decide to let people steal things they want from The Retailer and meet me in the pub later and buy me a drink. I guess that would be illegal too Mr. O\'hagen? I give the woman who helped me a copy of Catacombs Of Terror! by Stanley Donwood to say thanks. I wonder if I\'m allowed to do that even. The book is about seedy council officials and corrupt CCTV operatives.

I look up and notice one of the cameras is looking right at me so I give it a one-fingered salute and it pans away from me. I guess they get embarrassed when you give them the finger.

Whenever anyone was interested in my locally-made goods I told them what twits the council were and they all said \"Yes we know, council officers are all apparently complete idiots\". Some people mentioned the Spa and we all thought it might be a much better use of O\'hagan\'s time if he went and helped them sort out that fiasco. Some people muttered the word \"wankers\".

I remained on the street until about 5pm when it started raining and then I go to the pub where I bump into Andrew and Kirsten, the authors of some of the books I\'ve got on sale. Naturally they are interested in my story as their books are one of the most popular items I sell.

Kirsten And Andrew\'s books are about life in Bath so naturally they are interested to hear about my experiences, and this gives me an excellent opportunity to make more detailed notes about the day while I tell them the story. Am an anxious to write it down while its all fresh in my mind, so I make two more pages of notes while we have a pint ot two. Andrew and Kirsten tell me about a bloke they know on the council who usually helpful. I say yeah that\'ll be a first then, but 5 minutes later the guy walks into the bar. How fortuitous. Kirsten goes off for a natter with him, and when she comes back she says I should drop in to his office on George Street in the morning with the stuff. The Helpful Councillor is an Estate Agent it seems.

The next day was Wednesday 18th of August and I got up and wrote most what you\'ve read up to here on my computer.

By the time I\'ve typed up everything onto the computer it\'s about 2pm, so I head straight round to the Helpful Councillors Estate Agency with copies of all the details.

It\'s quite a posh Estate Agency - Ringhams - and the Helpful Councillor is busy on the phone when I arrive, so I leaf through some of the magazines full of estate agents\' adverts he\'s got in the office and see how much houses cost around here. He\'s also got the Chronicle and I have a look through there to see if there\'s anything about this new policy BANES have apparently adopted. There isn\'t. There\'s just something about a swarm of wasps.

After a while Mr. Ringham cups his hand over the receiver and asks me whether it\'s him I\'m there to see, is it about a rental? I guess I don\'t look the type to be one of his housebuyers and I say don\'t worry mate I\'ve got plenty of time, finish your conversation. So he does, and then I begin to tell him my story.

Mr Ringham - Mick - is sympathetic but says he\'s a councillor for Landsdown and so can\'t help. He is apparently not very surprised at the behaviour of our local public servants, and implies that he thinks some Council officers are out of control. He says BANES is \"an officer-led\" council. He says I must call one of the City Centre Councillors, and he says their names are Sarah Webb (usually very helpful apparently but on holiday for the next three weeks, so not much good) and Brian Webber (not usually very helpful he says). Oh, he says and you could mention it to Don Foster, he\'s in town at the moment. That\'s a good idea I think. Foster seems ok, and is always friendly, so I trundle off to James Street West and drop my story and the documents in for Don.

Foster is not in his office when I call, but Cat his assistant says he\'s due back soon so I say thats ok, I don\'t need any action from him just now I just want to let him know what\'s going on in his constituency and I say don\'t want to spend the night in jail, cheerio.

By now it\'s about 4.30 and I\'ve been trying to sort this out all day. Next stop Guildhall Records Office to see if they\'ve got a copy of the 1881 and 1871 Peddlars\' acts. They have.

The next day I see Sue again and we have a laugh and say yep, they\'ve gotta be joking, but it turns out the cops have been round hassling people again. They\'ve made the Appy Daze stall go away and Faviola has been told she\'s not allowed to use wheels on her jewellry stall.

Without her wheels, Faviola is now a struggling retailer herself, as she\'s trying to carry a huge display board on her shoulder, and having to prop it up on street furniture whenever someone wants to look at her jewellry. I tell here don\'t worry, you can use wheels, look, and show her the copies of the documents I\'ve collected.

Then Bob from Appy Daze comes along and borrows my copy of the \'71 and \'81 Acts to photocopy it. He\'s a bit miffed because he is already paying business rates and council tax and all that because he\'s got a shop in Walcot Street. He comes back later after talking to a solicitor, and apparently the cops or the council haven\'t got a leg to stand on. Next time we get any bollocks from the Council we have been advised to ask them \"Which piece of statutory legislation are you relying on to prevent me peddling my wares?\".

That night I see a copy of our notoriously unreliable local paper and one page contains this story

POLICE TO CRACK DOWN ON UNLICENSED TRADERS
BY TOM BRADSHAW
Police are launching a crackdown on unlicensed street traders, following an influx of peddlers to the city from across the country. Hawkers from as far afield as London and Derbyshire, selling everything from cheap jewellery to henna tattoos, have descended on the city. But officers say many of the peddlers, most of whom tout their wares in Stall Street and Abbey Church Yard, are breaking the terms of their licences by using stands. It costs £5,000 annually to have a Bath and North East Somerset Council street trading license, which entitles the owner to have a stall on the pavement. However, officers say peddlers are paying for the much cheaper police-issued peddler\'s certificate, and then using it as though it were a full street trading license. The £12.25 peddler\'s certificate allows the bearer to sell goods in the city only if he or she does not set up a stationary stall. But Pc Richard Durnford, a beat manager in Bath city centre, who is overseeing the clampdown on illegal street traders, said that the hawkers were flouting the terms of their certificates by not constantly moving. On Tuesday, Pc Durnford warned eight peddlers that they were breaking the law and faced prosecution by B&NES if they refused to mend their ways. He said: \"It\'s become clear that the peddlers are migrating from everywhere to come to Bath. \"We\'ve had quite a few complaints about them recently. \"If people come to Georgian Bath, they don\'t want to see somebody selling jokes out of plastic coffins on some kind of porter\'s trolley. \"We have had some reports from the public that they really don\'t like this. \"If the peddlers are not obeying the law, we will pass the details on to Bath and North East Somerset Council. \"Once they get the message that Bath isn\'t a soft touch, then they will either have to get shipshape or get shipped out.\" Insp Paul Mogg, of Bath police, said: \"We are being tougher in terms of the certificates that we grant. \"We are cracking down and making sure that the peddlers don\'t go out and act as street traders.\" A spokesman for the council said: \"There is ongoing communication between ourselves and the police about this issue. \"There have been a couple more prosecutions this year compared to last year.\"
t.bradshaw@bathchron.co.uk

The story is riddled with inaccuracies and prejudice. Apart from anything else, Bob from Appy Daze is pissed off because they are talking about his coffin, and it is made of wood (not plastic) and he doesn\'t sell jokes, he sells \"Smoking paraphernalia for novelty purposes only\".

For the next few days I\'ve other things to do, but on the following Tuesday I bimble in to town and see Faviola who busy trying to avoid the man in the nylon shirt and the cops. She says they\'re out hassling people again, and sure enough I soon come across O\'hagen and the cop hassling the girl with the watch-selling operation.

I say \"Excuse me madam, are these gentlemen bothering you?\" and she laughs. I tell her that she is to ask them \"which statuatory legislation are they using to deprive her of her livelihood?\"

\"It\'s bollocks what they\'re talking\" I say, and the copper says he\'ll arrest me if I say \'bollocks\' again. Fortunately I know this trick of theirs so instead I say \"I\'ll be back in 5 minutes with copies of the relevant legislation\" and the cop says \"I\'ll be in O\'hagen\'s office\".

I get on my bike (two wheels this time) and ride back to Walcot Street to get the documents. It is not far, and I do not even have to look for the documents because they are on my desk, right where I left them. I cycle back to town but the cop has gone, so I go to O\'hagen\'s office. It has taken me 12 minutes at the most.

Guess what? O\'hagen is not there again. And neither is the cop. The receptionist says I should calm down and I say It\'s difficult being calm when you\'ve just had your living taken away from you for the second time by the same Council department. Dowding appears. I ask him if O\'hagen or the cop are here and he says no, so I ask him which piece of statutory legislation is he using to deprive me of my livelihood and he says the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. I say can I have a look at that then please and he says he will not show me any documents at all, but I can find them in the library.

In so many words I say \"Mate, you are not a very nice man are you?\" and leave the building. I go to the library and I spend a long time on the internet. Needless to say, no documents relating to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 make any mention of any of the rubbish these twits have been burbling.

The council\'s strategy is apparently to fatigue people into submission by terrorising us with vague threats so we have to go and find whatever piece of legislation it they\'re claiming to enforce and go back to them and say \"no mate, look, here is the document\", and then they fling some other bullshit at you. The difficulty is they are being paid some huge salary to sit around and make up this bollocks (paid by us council tax payers) while I earn nothing while I run around on a paper chase.

The Council and the cop are clearly wrong. They are the school bullies who grew up and got jobs.

I was born in Bath, I am native to the city, and I only sell material created in Bath. How is it that I\'m supposed to pay council tax to people who want to stop me trading legally in my own home town?

Also, it was Avon and Somerset Police who issued me with my peddlar\'s Certificate, so they are acting fraudulently if they now say it is not valid. The police apparently took my money under false pretenses.

I am now almost at my wits\' end, and really rather hungry. I don\'t know whether to sign on the dole. If I did I doubt they would believe my story as to why I have been put out of business.

I am convinced that the Council or ther cops do not have a leg to stand on, and are content to make life so unpleasant for me I will no longer want to continue with The Struggling Retailer. However, I cannot bow to this bullying and feel the only option ius to continue trading until such time as the council brings a case against me in court and I loose it. I seriously doubt they would take me to court however but are more likely to keep on using their tactic of being very unpleasant to hopnest local people to justify their inflated salaries.

For moore information and pictures of The Struggling Retailer, please see
www.hedonistpress.com/struggling
or call Ambrose Blimfield on
07969 041322