Newspaper boxes are so very messy. Therefore, the Asheville Downtown Commission is again going to weigh in on proposed limits to how many boxes can go where. This is not the first attempt. Almost a decade ago, employees of right- and left-wing newspapers united against a common enemy that had declared any but Gannett’s boxes unsightly. I recall Brian Sarzynski of the Mountain Xpress convening a huddle after a city council meeting. We had to hush when the reporter for the local daily passed. I felt she took it personally, and I did not know how to make her feel OK when protecting free speech seemed at the time to be the greater good. It was in that conversation that Sarzynski shared the story of the time a skateboarder set one of the Mountain Xpress boxes on fire and tossed it off the roof of a parking garage. For some twisted reason, that always hit my funny bone.

Anyway, the new ordinance would limit the number of stands in a single location to five and require new boxes to be smaller than most of those on the streets. About thirty newspapers are currently on the streets of Asheville.

Asked by Xpress how, if a cluster exceeded five boxes, the city would determine which publications they would haul away, the assembled planners didn’t know.

“That’s a great question,” Neighborhood Coordinator Marsha Stickford replied. Planner Alan Glines noted that the city wants to avoid a formal permitting process.

Stickford reportedly said she had received a lot of email complaints about newspaper boxes which she had deleted; but a FOI inquiry by the Mountain Xpress found none.