New rules allow them to be held only on private land

It was business as usual for car booters at Ta` Qali yesterday despite new trade licensing regulations which allow the holding of car boot sales only on private land, and which lay down that organisers must apply to the trade licensing unit to hold them.

The regulations, published in the Government Gazzette on April 30, came into effect on May 2.

But it seems that the public is unaware of them.

Asked yesterday whether they knew about the new regulations, people selling stuff out of the boot of their cars at Ta` Qali said they had no idea. No one had come to stop them and enforce the regulations, they said.

They are in good company - Rabat police, when contacted yesterday, said they were unaware of the new rules.

The new regulations have been welcomed by the Park of Friendship and the GRTU, Association of General Retailers and Traders.

According to the regulations, no licence for a car boot sale will be issued unless the applicant is a non-profit making organisation.

The regulations also state that street and market hawkers and their substitutes should not be allowed to take part in car boot sales while people licensed to sell from any commercial premises should not be allowed to sell the type of products listed in their licence.

Sellers must issue a receipt to buyers and sites should only be allocated to passenger cars. No sale will be permitted from vans or any other commercial vehicles.

Nathan Farrugia, the general manager of the Park of Friendship, which organises car boot sales, welcomed the new regulations. He said they should help the park`s car boot sales, organised every Sunday, to regain their popularity.

Although the park`s car boot sales were the most popular on the island, interest dipped in the last few years after other such sales started being held at Ta` Qali.

Car booters started going to Ta` Qali because they were saving the Lm3 fee charged by the Park of Friendship for the use of its land. This shift cost the park`s car boot sales around Lm1,000 a month, Mr Farrugia said.

He said that car boot sales generated a quarter of the Lm200,000 revenue annually required by the park to provide its services free of charge to the disabled.

Items sold in car boot sales included plants, old clothes, pots and pans, games, toys, and crafts. The whole point of a car boot sale was having fun trying to sell one`s junk, Mr Farrugia said.

At Ta` Qali and elsewhere they had become a business, as people who went there have found out.

Mr Farrugia said the Parliamentary Secretary in the Economic Services Ministry, Edwin Vassallo, recently asked the park`s administration for its advice on the guidelines.

"He was very cooperative and enthusiastic to get things done," Mr Farrugia said.

He said that according to the new guidelines, the Ta` Qali car boot sales could no longer be held.

The park`s administration, he said, agreed with most of the regulations. However, it did not agree with the provision banning vans and commercial vehicles from car boot sales as some families had no other vehicle.

It was also up to the authorities to ensure that the new regulations were adhered to. The park encouraged such checks, he said.

"The regulations will definitely help the park`s car boot sales pick up again," he said.

GRTU director general Vince Farrugia said the association had objected strongly in the past because car boot sales had become places for illicit trading.

However, the new provisions placed such sales within a regulated framework.

Mr Farrugia said the GRTU had similar complaints regarding buskers who could just go and do their thing without any regulations.

"A regulatory framework is required in this field," he said.