GLENDALE : Aspiring Newsstand Owner Persuades City

Growing up in New York City, Max Berg loved browsing through the periodicals at the newsstands scattered all over town. But when the folks at Glendale City Hall told him newsstands were outlawed, Berg thought his hopes of opening the first one in town were dashed.

But this week--a year and half later--Berg is meeting with property owners and is well on his way to opening that newsstand--after he pushed the right levers in city government and persuaded the City Council to adopt an ordinance that allows purveyors of printed matter to set up shop on public streets.

“It’s amazing,” said Berg, 46, who is self-employed as a traveling notary public. “When I first approached the city, they said, ‘Not only do we not have a law allowing newsstands, we have a law forbidding them.’ But at the same time they sort of told me, ‘Give it a shot.’ They were sort of unofficially encouraging me.”

Berg credits his success in getting the new ordinance passed last week to his tenacity. He says too many people “just give up” when they are told that laws prohibit them from doing what they want to do. But he also said that much of the credit for the new law goes to the city workers who helped him.

“I think he had the right idea at the right time, and he was also very persistent,” said Emily Eggleston, an administrative assistant in the city manager’s office. “He wasn’t pushy though. The first words that usually came out of his mouth were, ‘I’m sorry to bug you.’ ”

Berg said he researched local history books and found out that there was at least one newsstand in Glendale’s history. Al’s Alley Stand was open roughly from the end of World War I to 1967 and was located in the alley that now runs behind the Strouds fabric store on Brand Boulevard, he said.

Like the proprietor of Al’s, Berg is a military veteran and said he hopes to hire disabled veterans to work at his newsstand. He said the business will be family-oriented, with no pornographic materials, and hopefully will be located on Brand Boulevard in the business district.

Ironically, Berg said he is having more trouble finding a location for the business than he did getting the laws changed to allow it.

“It’s surprising. I’ve been turned away by several locations for different reasons, but I’ll keep trying,” he said.