Re; N.Y. Post 8/20/98 Editorial
Free Speech or Free Exhibition Space
Dear Editor,
I want to thank you for writing your third editorial in 93 days
viciously attacking street artists, our First Amendment advocacy
group A.R.T.I.S.T. and myself [see N.Y. Post editorial page
[5/17/98, 6/16/98, 8/20/98]. In the sense that you can judge an
individual or group by their enemies, the Post, N.Y. City s only
blatantly pro-Giuliani paper, has given us a great compliment.
Unfortunately, as usual you miss the entire point of this issue as
evidenced by the editorial s title, Free Speech or Free Exhibition
Space . Since 1996, when the Federal courts ruled that artists are
entitled to exactly the same First Amendment rights as book and
newspaper vendors, we have been officially exempt from any
license or permit. It s the same principle that allows the Post, the
Times and the Daily News to have thousands of newspaper
vending boxes on New York City street corners without needing a
permit, getting anyone s permission or paying any fee. The small
inconvenience these vending boxes sometimes cause is far
outweighed by the social value of having newspapers readily
available to all and of protecting everyone s right to free speech
without government intervention.
While you rightly noted the soundness of Judge Billings
courageous ruling you omitted a very key fact that led to it. The
Corporation Counsel attorneys and the attorneys for the Parks
Department lied to Federal Judge Lawrence McKenna, submitting
briefs, motions and oral arguments claiming that the City had a
permit system for book vendors and enforced it. We have an
abundance of proof, including written and taped statements by the
Parks Departments lawyers, that there is in fact no book vendor
permit and no enforcement against such vendors around parks.
This deliberate falsification of the basic facts led Judge McKenna
to deny us the preliminary injunction in Lederman et al v. Giuliani.
While you are proselytizing about impeaching President Clinton
for lying about the most private of human interactions, you might
want to think about the constitutional crimes of Mayor Rudy
Police State Giuliani including a pattern of lying to Federal
judges, the suppression of public information, the falsification of
documents, the sidestepping of legal procedures for public
hearings and the false arrests of hundreds of artists who were, it
turns out, not even violating the laws of the City of New York.
Robert Lederman, president of A.R.T.I.S.T. (718) 369-2111
e mail [log in to unmask]
255 13th St. Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215
For info on the street artist and vendor issues go to:
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
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The Post Editorial follows:
N.Y. Post 8/20/98 EDITORIAL
FREE SPEECH - OR FREE EXHIBITION SPACE?
Thanks to Mayor Giuliani's quality-of-life program, New Yorkers
no longer have to step over quite so many vagrants in order to
enjoy the greenery of New York's parks or the aesthetic stimulation
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unfortunately, thanks to
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Lucy Billings, they might now
find themselves navigating their way around hordes of
self-described "artists" who think it's appropriate to liken
politicians they oppose to Hitler.
Since March 1, the mayor has sought to bring some order to places
such as the plaza in front of the Metropolitan and the entrances to
Central Park by restricting the number of artists who can
congregate in these areas to create and show their works.
The city requires that they obtain a $25 monthly permit, distributed
by lottery, similar to a system in place at other heavily trafficked
locales in Manhattan. The system seeks to ensure that pedestrian
congestion and scuffles between artist-peddlers for space are
avoided. Around 85 percent of applicants get a license. Violation
of the new regulation is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90
days in jail and a maximum $1,000 fine.
An attempt by several artists to win a federal injunction against the
regulation on First Amendment grounds failed earlier this
year.Since then, police have been handing out summonses. Several
defendants have moved to have the charges dismissed on
free-speech grounds, an argument that found a friendly ear in
Judge Billings.
The judge had better grounds for her decision than many recent
judicial outcomes attacked in these pages. In 1982, the City
Council wrote into its licensing statutes an exemption for vendors
of printed matter. Federal court precedents have interpreted this
definition to include artists, and that was the rationale Billings
used to dismiss the charges.
Artists need an unfettered right to produce and sell their art - but,
in our view, they do not have an unfettered right to do it wherever
they please. It is a peculiar extension of the First Amendment to
assert that open-air exhibition space is the same thing as "free
speech."
DA Robert Morgenthau's office is considering an appeal - and
until a higher court upholds Judge Billings' decision, it will not be
binding on any other judge in the city. That means police can still
enforce the regulation.
New York has again become a safe, clean and orderly place -
which is very difficult to achieve in a very small and crowded
space. It will be a constant struggle to prevent the city from falling
back again into the chaotic libertarianism of the past.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.
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