Cap on Newsstand Prices Expected to Rise, Along With Offerings Kevin Toussaint, right, would like to find more items at his local newsstand, which could result from a plan to raise the city's price cap on many products sold there. The newsstands of New York City cater to all kinds of demands: a craving for spearmint gum, an impulse to enter the lottery, a failing device in want of new batteries, a sudden downpour that makes an umbrella not only necessary, but urgently so. Ask for anything much more expensive than a midafternoon snack, however, and the humble newsstand cannot help. A little-known city regulation caps the price of items sold by newsstands at $5 before taxes, keeping cellphone chargers, earbuds, tourist guidebooks, sunglasses and other oft-requested items out of reach for passers-by. But the City Council will soon propose legislation to raise the cap to $10, allowing proprietors to stock new conveniences and upgrade cheaper ones, like the classic (and classically flimsy) black umbrella. "The $4 umbrella of 2002 isn't the same as the $4 umbrella of 2012-13," said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, who announced the plan on Monday morning in front of a newsstand near City Hall. The $4 umbrella in 2013 - you're lucky if it's going to get you to the corner. Ms. Quinn also hailed the legislation as a boon for New Yorkers who forget their cellphone chargers at home "or, if you're like me, you stepped on it and broke it." The price cap exists, she explained, to keep newsstands from growing into minimarts. It does not apply to food carts, street vendors or convenience stands in subway stations, only to newsstands regulated by the Department of Consumer Affairs. Exceptions to the rule include cigarettes, newspapers, magazines, prepaid transit passes and telephone calling cards. Regardless of price, however, newsstands cannot sell fresh food, apparel, jewelry, handbags, hair ornaments or - though this has long ceased to be a hardship to many vendors - videocassettes. The cap was last modified in 2002, when it was raised from $2. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani vetoed the bill in the waning hours of his tenure, but it became one of the first bills Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed into law. Newsstands, which are common in Manhattan but less so in the other boroughs, numbered more than 1,500 in the 1950s, said Robert Bookman, counsel to the New York City Newsstand Operators Association. The number has fallen to 300, driven by the decline of the newsstand's original stock in trade - newspapers and magazines - and affected by a period of severe regulation, Mr. Bookman said, but it has increased slightly in recent years. With the deterioration of print publications, ever-rising cigarette taxes and the cap, proprietors said, their profits have shrunk significantly. Even larger bags of candy recently outgrew the $5 limit, said Bali Patel, 55, who has run a stand near Wall Street for 20 years. Tourists going to see the 9/11 Memorial and other nearby landmarks constantly ask him for street maps, disposable cameras and souvenirs. But so much of the time, as when he is asked for I♥NY gear, he has to disappoint them, prompting a follow-up question: "Well, where can I get it?" The typical New Yorker, according to a few newsstand customers, has somewhat more mundane needs. Kevin Toussaint, 24, who was buying Kit Kat and Snickers bars at the newsstand where Ms. Quinn announced the legislation, said he usually visited newsstands for snacks, cigarettes, lottery tickets and even newspapers. But were his local newsstand to stock chargers and bigger packages of batteries, he said, he would "absolutely" buy them: "It's outside, it's accessible, there are no lines." Late nights at the office have often made Angel DeJesus, 47, long for the day when the nearest newsstand might carry lotions, toothpaste, hand sanitizer and deodorant. "Anything that makes life more convenient," he said. But of all the items the newsstands can offer, perhaps none is more important to the city's harried masses than the modest umbrella. "My customers, especially the tourists, will put anything down for an umbrella," said Vic Kassery, 65, the longtime proprietor of a newsstand near the Empire State Building. "If it's raining, are you going to think, "Am I going to pay $4.50 for an umbrella?" Hello! It's raining!