| The small, well-known street newsstands, peripteros,
which can still be seen in most cities, are almost an institution in
Greece. |
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The newsstand were originally (in the 1950ies)
rented to war invalids, so that they could scratch a bare living. |
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| Nowadays,
especially handicapped people can rent the peripteros. However, these
usually rent them to others, in
order to collect both
a percentage of the sales and a lump sum for "goodwill". |
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Formally, the peripteros belong to the Ministry of
Defense, but in 1969, the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of
Defense and the Ministry of the Interior stated in a joint declaration
that the peripteros' area must not exceed 1.95 square metres. |
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| This
department order was reversed in 1990 when the city council of Athens
decided that the peripteros could be 3.75 square metres. Later (1998),
Athens' then mayor, Avramopoulos, decided that they now
could be up to 7.5 square metres. To make the confusion total, it should
be mentioned that the original ministerial order has never been changed,
so there is some doubt as to how big the peripteros in fact are allowed
to be. |
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| According
to the old law, the peripteros were only allowed to sell tobacco
products, newspapers, chewing gum, chocolate, toiletries and laces, but
in 1973 the assortments
were
extended to include juice and ice cream. However, many peripteros have a
much larger range
of articles.
In many of
them you can find both milk, yogurt, cheese, several
kinds of drugs. You can
sometimes even find axes and blankets ....
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But as the president of the association of periptero
owners says, they need to keep up with the times to survive and that the
problem lies in the law that has not been updated with new products. |
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| In the past there was a periptero on almost every
corner, but today there are only approx. 17,000 at the national level, of which the 3,000 are
in the metropolitan area. |
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In the middle of the 1990ies
the publishing house Kastaniotis released Dimitris Gionis' book "To
periptero" (only in greek), which is about a young boy who comes to
Athens from the province and starts to work in his brothers' periptero.
The book is very interesting with its many descriptions of Athens in the
50ies.
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