In a dispute that pitted First Amendment rights against allegations of littering, the city has struck a compromise with the state's biggest newspaper distributer.
The Salt Lake-based Newspaper Agency Corp. can continue delivering Etc., a free weekly paper, as long as carriers pick up after themselves. The City Council this month considered passing a "solicitors and peddlers ordinance" that would've stopped distribution of unsolicited newspapers.In an effort to achieve what is known in industry parlance as "total market coverage," NAC has been dropping Etc. on doorsteps of Park City residents who don't subscribe to either of the two daily papers NAC distributes, the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune.
City Manager Toby Ross said the ordinance was drafted because of complaints that Etc. was piling up on the doorsteps of homeowners who don't live year-round in Park City.
"Because we have so many second homes, these papers just sit there and some people just felt it was an invitation to burglary," said Ross.
Terms of the new ordinance allow delivery, but prohibit carriers from letting more than one paper pile up.
"You can throw your paper, but if you come around the next week, you can't throw another one if it's still there," said Ross.
"We did that anyway," said Sharon Sonnenreich, legal counsel to NAC. "It's always been a part of our policy and procedure."
Sonnenreich said Park City is the first Utah municipality to try curbing NAC's free-newspaper delivery, which occurs on a large scale along the Wasatch Front.
"They were reasonable people," she said. "We were able to come up with an ordinance that we feel meets the city's legitimate interests but also does not infringe on First Amendment rights."
About 12,000 copies of Etc. are delivered weekly in the Park City area and to nearby Wasatch County. NAC delivers another 235,000 free weekly papers along the Wasatch Front, in addition to the Deseret News and the Tribune, separately owned papers whose daily statewide circulations, respectively, are about 65,000 and 122,000, according to Steve Kelsey, circulation director for NAC.