WOBURN - The City Council pushed a proposal to ban hawkers from peddling goods on public property back into committee this week after several Aldermen warned the ordinance would hurt many unintended vendors.

Ward 2 Alderman Richard Gately, who authored the ordinance, urged his counterparts on Tuesday night to either kill the regulation or designate it for further study by the council's Ordinance Committee.

In particular, the new city law would prohibit any hawker, vendor, or peddler from conducting business in public parks or alongside city streets for longer than 30 minutes.

"The intent of this ordinance has changed. It was [written to regulate] transient vendors. The collateral damage it causes is not worth it," said Gately.

Earlier this month, the Ordinance Committee endorsed the proposal in a 3-to-2 vote, with Gately and Ward 5 Alderwoman Darlene Mercer-Bruen opposing the municipal code amendment.

According to Gately, the regulation would seriously undermine the viability of a number of local merchants and enterprises, most of whom he didn't intend to impact when the ordinance was written.

"If it ever stays the way it is now, we're talking about mailboxes, paper boxes like the [Boston] Globe and [The Daily Times]. To me, it's something we have to work on," the Ward 2 Alderman argued.

Last June, Foster Avenue resident Richard O'Rouke urged the council to adopt new regulations to prevent peddlers from using Ferullo Field and the Horn Pond parking area nearby the Blue Stars Memorial.

The local resident argued that peddlers had no right to profit by using the city's property as their permanent place of business. O'Rourke was particularly outraged that two such vendors were using spaces dedicated to the memory of the city's war heroes.

During committee meetings earlier this month, Gately pitched the regulation as a way to prohibit those businesses from using the two parks, or any other similar municipal property.

However, Gately altered his stance on the proposal when he realized that the ordinance could shut down North Woburn resident Anthony Fiorello's pizza business on New Boston Street.

A contingent of vendors from across the city, who would also be hurt by the municipal code amendment, attended this week's council meeting.

According to Ward 7 Alderman Raymond Drapeau, he believed that the city should step-in to stop hawkers from using Woburn's parks as their base of operation.

Drapeau, who supported the ordinance earlier this month, also acknowledged that the regulation needed to be altered to accommodate other enterprises that utilize city land, but do so respectfully and in areas that don't conflict with pedestrians, park users, or traffic.

"The main concern is on public lands where someone sets-up where it takes away from the people trying to recreate," the Ward 7 Alderman commented. "I don't have a problem, so to speak, with the types of vendors who are [here tonight]."

"I think they could be properly permitted, so we could control it. There are some people who are operating responsibly. And we don't want to hurt them," Drapeau furthered.