All-Star Game brings MLB restrictions

If you're planning to save a few bucks by buying your 2015 All-Star Game garb from a street vendor – or score a ticket to the game on the street – good luck.

Host city Cincinnati – like most cities hosting big sporting events – is regulating what street vendors can sell.

Most baseball vendors who work Downtown won't be allowed to sell knock-off clothing, pennants or other memorabilia during a six-day period surrounding the 2015 All-Star game here. Street-corner ticket sales – a fixture on Cincinnati streets preceding baseball games – have been banned, too.

Still for sale: Food and drinks.

City officials, who are preparing 2015 vendor licenses, announced the move in a letter sent Monday to 50 vendors, those who would be affected by the redistricted area, the so-called "clean zone."

The decision is based on Major League Baseball rules, which must be followed in order to host the game.

"The city of Cincinnati recognized that the inability to sell merchandise and tickets and similar items during this event is not what vendors may have wanted to occur," the city wrote in the letter. "... we are notifying you well in advance of the event in order to assist in your planning efforts."

A public hearing on the restrictions is scheduled for Monday. Council will vote on the matter June 25.

The city previously passed a "clean zone" during the World Choir Games in 2012.

Cincinnati spokesman Rocky Merz said the city values its street vendors and recognizes they add to the game-day experience.

"We want to balance the work done by the vendors, the requirements of the MLB and the safety of our visitors," Merz said.

Clean zones aren't new but have prompted outcry in other cities – Detroit established a 300-mile clean zone for the 2006 Super Bowl.

Earlier this year, the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit over the regulations for this year's All-Star Baseball Game there, calling the restrictions unconstitutional because it cedes licensing authority to an outside group.

The lawsuit was dropped when city council shrank the clean zone, freeing the ACLU's client, the plaintiff in the suit, from the restrictions.

But Minnesota ACLU Executive Director Charles Samuelson said he still has concerns about such restrictions because they restrict free speech.

"Here's what the people of Cincinnati need to ask: Is it proper to give control of First Amendment activities for a period of time to a group of businesspeople?" he said.

A map of the Cincinnati redistricted zone shows a wide swath of Downtown encompassed by the rules, from just west of Paul Brown Stadium to the Montgomery Inn and in some places north to Seventh and Ninth streets. Fountain Square is carved out of the restricted area because programming there is run by Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.

In the vendor letter, city officials promised to help vendors who want to relocate to areas where they could sell merchandise.

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