Vendors

If no chairman steps forward, Sykesville's annual Fall Festival could meet the same fate as the spring Flower Mart: cancellation.Faced with more empty spaces than vendors, the Sykesville Business Association announced Tuesday that it had canceled the May 1 Flower Mart."

ANNAPOLIS -- Carroll's delegation yesterday voted to support nearly a dozen bills sought by the county commissioners and others that would restrict street vendors, license massage parlors and allow caterers to serve alcoholic beverages as hosts of their own shindigs.The delegation -- in an hourlong meeting -- declined to support seven proposals, including one to give the commissioners line-item veto power over the school board budget."My concern is the [commissioners] didn't use it when they had the authority," said Sen. Charles Smelser, a Democrat who represents Carroll, Frederick and Howard counties.

The 21st annual Westminster Fallfest begins tonight with the annual parade through town from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.Marching units, cars, floats, clowns and local personalities will wind their way west on Monroe Avenue, south on Pennsylvania Avenue, east on West Main Street, north on Longwell Avenue, and end at East Middle School.For four days, the city celebrates the start of a new season on the city playground off Longwell Avenue and surrounding area.Tomorrow's activities include a ride night -- six hours of rides for $12 ($10 with a coupon)

It seems that we are never too old to be interested in the wonder of toys and trains.I know that they have always had a way with me, no matter where I see them.Whether the toys are in a display case or in the hands of a child, I stop and take notice.On Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., children and folks like me will have a wonderful time scouting the Old Toys and Train Show and Sale in the social hall at the Reese Fire Department.This is the second year for the event and it promises to be as exciting as it was last year.

As a warm and lazy July afternoon yesterday beckoned waves of visitors to Artscape, a group of enterprising street vendors established their own thriving bazaar on the fringes of the city's annual festival staged in the Mount Royal neighborhood.Not officially sanctioned by Artscape's organizers, this impromptu fair -- where everything from Honduran cigars to scented oils was peddled -- seemed to draw its own constituency."I wouldn't miss this," said Colleen Hurley, a visitor from Fairfax, Va.She spent part of yesterday afternoon hunched over a sales table on Dolphin Street west of Howard Street, outside the Artscape boundaries.

Eddie Brooks sold his colorful array of baseball hats, sweaters, pennants and sunglasses during Orioles FanFest at the corner of Camden and Eutaw streets, an area off-limits to vendors during games the past two years. The event Saturday wasn't an actual contest, so Brooks was able to sell at a spot that will be closed to vendors again come today's Orioles season opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. The event provided Brooks a brief flashback to the good old days. "If you came to a game in 2003 or 2004, everything was set up. All up and down Camden Street, people were selling pizza, there were umpteenths million hat stands.

Nine vendors whose companies include major names in the U.S. food industry were charged in federal court in New York yesterday with helping Columbia-based U.S. Foodservice Inc. perpetrate an $800 million accounting fraud that illustrated the pressure on suppliers to engage in a cover-up to maintain lucrative business relationships, attorneys said. The vendors, whose companies included General Mills Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc., were charged with aiding executives of U.S. Foodservice in producing false records that created the illusion of $800 million in added revenues over three years.

Roadside flower vendors will have some unwelcome business on Mother's Day weekend -- police business -- in a Baltimore County crackdown on illegal sales.Spurred to action by complaints from a more traditional merchant, the county plans to use zoning inspectors and police officers to move or issue citations to illegal peddlers beginning Friday, May 10, two days before Mother's Day.At stake locally are tens of thousands of dollars in sales -- a share of the Mother's Day demand for flowers that the national Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD)

City officials scrambled yesterday to find a temporary home for more than 50 horses residing in a crumbling West Baltimore stable while trying to assure the vendors known as "Arabbers" that the tradition of selling produce on city streets would endure. But some Arabbers and their supporters questioned the city officials' promises and warned that the practice of horse-drawn produce wagons, which dates back to the 19th century, is on the verge of being wiped out. ARTICLE, pg 6A

The vendors of the Randallstown Flea Market hawked their used computers, cut-rate jewelry and oversize bras for the last time yesterday -- ending a brief run of capitalism at its most chaotic.More than 23,000 people packed the giant, warehouse-style room when the flea market opened on Liberty Road in September 1994. And no wonder -- with 210 tables of merchandise, 140 booths, a buffet and video games.But the crowds steadily dwindled to fewer than a thousand a day. Yesterday, vendors were offering merchandise for half-price or free so they wouldn't have to cart it away to homes or storage areas.