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The purpose this article is to promote the public health, safety and general welfare of the citizens and visitors to the downtown area of Fort Worth through the regulation of placement, type, appearance and maintenance of newsracks on public rights-of-way so as to:
(a) Provide for pedestrian and driver safety and convenience;
(b) Restrict unreasonable interference with the flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, including, but not limited to, ingress into and egress from any residence or place of business, or from the street to the sidewalk, or from the sidewalk to the street by persons exiting or entering parked or standing vehicles;
(c) Provide for the safety of the general public and property during emergency conditions;
(d) Provide reasonable access for the use and maintenance of poles, posts, traffic signs and/or signals, hydrants, mailboxes, sidewalks, planters, pavers and access to locations used for public transportation;
(e) Allow for the placement and maintenance of newsracks in areas, as determined by the city, which afford easy, convenient service to pedestrians, but do not obstruct or interfere with access to abutting properties, and which do not impede or endanger pedestrian, bicycle or vehicular traffic;
(f) Relocate, replace and/or remove newsracks which result in visual blight and/or are not installed according to this ordinance on the public rights-of-way or which block or interfere with the aesthetics of store window displays, adjacent businesses, landscaping, street furniture, public or private, and other improvements as well as to allow the removal of abandoned newsracks;
(g) Maintain and protect the values of surrounding properties, and ensure that the aesthetics and historical attributes of the downtown area and businesses are not compromised by the unregulated placement of newsracks in the public right-of-way;
(h) Reduce unnecessary exposure of the public to personal injury or property damage;
(i) Maintain and preserve freedom of the press to distribute periodicals and newspapers; and
(j) Reduce visual blight and improve the aesthetic appearance of the city’s streets and sidewalks for the merchants, citizens and visitors to the city by coordinating the placement and number of newsracks on public rights-of-way.
(Ord. 17529, § 1, passed 5-1-2007, eff. 9-1-2007)
The following words, terms and phrases, when used in this article, shall have the meanings ascribed to them in this section, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning:
ABANDONED NEWSRACK. Any newsrack which remains empty of the owners’ publication or unserviced for:
(1) Four consecutive days for a daily publication;
(2) Eight consecutive days for a weekly publication;
(2) Sixteen consecutive days for a biweekly publication; and
(3) Thirty-four consecutive days for a monthly publication.
BUSINESS DAYS. Monday through Friday, excluding any legal holiday observed by the city.
CITY. The City of Fort Worth, Texas.
CITY MANAGER. The Fort Worth City Manager or his or her designated assistant city manager.
CROSSWALK. That part of a roadway, whether marked or unmarked, which is included with the extension of the sidewalk lines between opposite sides of the roadway at an intersection.
DEPARTMENT. The city’s department of planning and development for permitting purposes and the city’s department of code compliance for enforcement purposes.
DIRECTOR. The director the department of planning and development or the director of code compliance, as applicable, or their designees.
DISTRIBUTOR. The person responsible for placing and maintaining a newsrack in a public-right-of-way, parkway or sidewalk.
PERSON. Any individual, firm, partnership, association, corporation, company organization or legal entity of any kind.
NEWSRACK. Any self-service or coin-operated box, container, storage unit or other dispenser installed, used or maintained for the display and sale or distribution, with or without charge, of newspapers, news periodicals, news publications, printed news material, commercial literature or other publications.
OBSCENE. Material that depicts or describes sexual conduct that is objectionable or offensive to accepted standards of decency which the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests; or material which depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law, and taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY. The entirety of any public street area, including the public roadway and adjacent pedestrian ways and shall include, but not be limited to, roadways, parkways, alleys and sidewalks.
PARKWAY. The area between the sidewalk and the curb of any street and where there is not sidewalk, the area between the edges of the roadway the property line adjacent to the roadway. PARKWAY shall also include any area within a roadway that is not open to vehicular traffic.
SIDEWALK. All that area or surface provided for the exclusive use of pedestrians.
UNSERVICED. Any newsracks which does not contain the most current owners publication.
(Ord. 17529, § 1, passed 5-1-2007, eff. 9-1-2007)
The provisions of this article shall apply to all newsracks, whether installed and maintained prior to or after the effective date of any of the provisions of this ordinance. Any newsrack installed prior to the effective date of this ordinance shall be brought into compliance with the provisions of this article within 30 days of the effective date of this ordinance. Any newsrack not brought into compliance within 30 days of the effective date of this ordinance shall be deemed to be in violation of this article.
(Ord. 17529, § 1, passed 5-1-2007, eff. 9-1-2007)
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