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Artistic expression
a criminal offence?

New Permit Proposed
For Street Artists
and Book Vendors

by Robert Lederman
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net
July 9, 2002

A new law is being proposed in the City Council which if passed will eliminate the First Amendment rights of street artists and book vendors in NYC by requiring them to obtain a vending permit [the full text of the law is below my comments along with contact info for bill the sponsors and committee members]. The only purpose of this permit is to deny the people of New York City the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution to free speech on public property. For almost a decade, the NYC Department of Parks has led the way in terms of NY City agencies consistently violating those rights.

If this bill is passed into law it will become the basis for reversing nine years worth of legal victories by the group A.R.T.I.S.T. in which we overturned both the street vending license requirement and Parks permit requirement for street artists.

However, this law goes much further than doing that.

This proposed bill would also reverse the 1982 exemption from any license or permit for vendors of written matter and, far more importantly for the general public, it would even make setting up a table to hand out political or religious literature subject to a permit and official government approval.

For First Amendment purposes there is no legal difference between selling or freely handing out written matter or art.

Once the law is passed in Parks it will immediately lead to an identical permit requirement on NYC streets. If you are familiar with our lawsuits you 'll understand that the First Amendment rights of street artists were based on the 1982 written matter vendor exemptions that are part of the NYC Administrative code.

This is exactly what street artists have been warned for some time was coming. In the next few weeks we will be organizing a series of meetings at which to discuss this and plan our response to it. It important that you clearly and fully understand what is at stake here.

Below is the bill intro copied verbatim from the NY City Council website. It was submitted in the Councils Parks committee on 4/24/02.

One of that committee's members
as you will see below
is Council member Alan Gerson.

Mr. Gerson has been trying very hard to depict himself as a "friend" to street artists and as a "defender" of the First Amendment. As a member of the Parks committee he has known of this bill since at least 4/24/2002 yet he has made no effort to alert even those few street artists whose friendship and political support he has been cultivating about it.

Note that this bill was introduced at the request of Mayor Bloomberg who also likes to tell the media he is a great friend to the arts community and a big defender of the First Amendment.
Like Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Gerson, the NYC Department of Parks cultivates the public impression that they are pro-art and support the concept of free speech while their actions show them to be doing exactly the opposite.

The City of New York has spent millions of dollars and nine years of concerted effort both on the streets and in Federal Court trying to destroy artists' rights. The exact same permit this bill is proposing was overturned by a Federal Court injunction just last year in the lawsuit Lederman et al v Giuliani.

A few days before this bill was filed on April 24, 2002, the City appealed Lederman v Giuliani to the 2nd circuit Federal Appeals court. Because the City knows they will lose the appeal they want to change the law the case was based on. Once they change the law, they believe the court ruling will no longer apply.

This should be the last straw in the controversy on whether or not Alan Gerson is trying to help - or trying to destroy - street artists' rights. If you are someone who has been puzzled by Mr. Gerson organizing the effort just a few days after this bill was submitted to seize and destroy artists' vending displays in SoHo or by his sponsoring the creation of a Community Court where street artists would be tried by judges paid by and answerable to the same people calling the police on artists I ask you to do the following:

Ask Alan Gerson

Ask Alan Gerson what he plans to do about this bill. Don't accept any more empty promises or absurd denials of responsibility. Actions speak much louder than words. Here's Mr. Gerson's opportunity to do something to really help artists and to really defend the First Amendment. Is he up to the challenge?

To understand what this bill is really about and who is really behind it you need to understand the actual history of our struggle, all of which you can find documented on our websites in great detail. You will also find articles on the part Alan Gerson and his allies in the BIDs and SoHo Alliance play in this controversy.

Apart from the various emotionally agitated residents and storeowners who have real - or more often than not, imaginary - problems with artists and vendors, we have some very powerful and very dangerous enemies. These enemies are not playing around.

They exert a huge influence on elected officials by funding their campaigns, basically, by putting them in office. The Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), the Central Park Conservancy and a number of the world's most influential corporations such as JP Morgan/Chase Bank and Disney want all vendors off the streets and out of Parks and they have been trying to get that job done for more than decade. They understand that First Amendment protected vendors are the frontline defense in this struggle. Once they get rid of us all other vendors are history.

These business interests and BIDs created the Peddler Task Force in the late 1980's. In 1995 they filed amicus briefs against us in our lawsuits. Under Giuliani's Street Vendor Review Panel they caused hundreds of perfectly wide streets to be made officially restricted to all forms of vending, including First Amendment protected vending. Then they filled these same restricted streets with gigantic concrete planters emblazoned with their logos. Soon these planters will carry ads the way telephone booths now do.

While Mr. Gerson and other City Council members - and the Mayor - are elected officials answerable to their full constituency, they pay far more attention to what the BIDs want than to what the voters want or to what the Constitution guarantees. On the day these City officials took office they swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution. Unfortunately, that oath was only some nice words which they knew would never be honored.

To get their attention it's going to take street artists using our strong points to counter these corporate influences. There's only one thing politicians are more concerned about than money and that's being reelected.

We must use the embarrassment factor. Corporations and elected officials definitely fear the embarrassment factor.

We don't have money or a large voting constituency with which to pressure them but we do have a well-proven ability to embarrass them publicly by relentlessly exposing what they are doing. First, we will respectfully give them a chance to respond while we get our legal ducks in order, but if they only respond with empty words and more phony promises then it's time to get tough.

How tough? We must be at least as tough on them as they are on us.

We spent nine years fighting for our First Amendment rights in court, in the media and on the street. Now it's once again time to start using our rights for something more than just making a living.

Your sidewalk display is exactly like an advertising billboard, a newspaper editorial page or a television station and based on our lawsuits has exactly the same rights From it you can get a petition signed, display protest signs, make speeches or give out leaflets, all while doing your regular daily work of selling and earning a living.

You are probably familiar with the tremendous press coverage our Giuliani signs got over the eight years of his administration. Members of ARTIST just like yourself used cardboard and paint as a powerful weapon to peacefully and legally fight for all street artists' First Amendment rights.

(Click Here to view the bill on the City Council's own website)

[Note: where the bill says "vending of written matter" it also means the vending of art. Visual art became officially classified as written matter after we won the first street artist lawsuits in 1996, Lederman et al v City of NY/Bery et al v City of NY. Also note the doublespeak in the wording of this proposed law. It pretends that it's about protecting First Amendment rights when it's clearly about taking them away. It also falsely claims that a permit is needed to regulate vending, the identical argument the City unsuccessfully used in Lederman et al v Giuliani. Numerous state and federal courts have specifically ruled in numerous street artist lawsuits and Criminal Court cases that the City's 60-plus page Vending Ordinance already has hundreds of rules that adequately regulate the time, place and manner of vending. As a final note of irony, the original written matter exemption this proposed law seeks to remove was partly sponsored in 1982 by then City Council member, Henry Stern, who later became Commissioner of Parks and a leading opponent of First Amendment rights for artists. Mr. Stern's protege, Adrian Benepe, is now Parks Commissioner. Mr. Benepe is also an outspoken opponent of street artists who has written me almost 100 emails detailing his negative views on us. Mr Benepe, Mr Stern and eight other Giuliani administration officials are in Federal Court right now trying to beat a subpoena to appear for a deposition in Lederman et al v Giuliani, the Parks artist permit case that is at the root of this new proposed law.]

Below is a list of the Parks Committee members who will debate this proposed law. Later this month they will either toss it in the trash where it belongs or approve it and send it on to the entire council for a vote.

To Alan Gerson, a proud member of this very same Parks committee, I say this: We are going to very carefully watch what you do or don't do on this matter. Here's your chance to show those few of us who are still doubtful, which side of the First Amendment you are really on.

Sponsors for Int 0160-2002

Sponsors Names:
*Addabbo, Jr., Joseph, *Comrie, Leroy,
*Diaz, Ruben, *Foster, Helen,
*Golden, Martin J., *Perkins, William

COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON: Joseph Addabbo, Jr.
MEMBERS: Gale Brewer, Ruben Diaz, Erik Martin Dilan, Helen Foster, Alan Gerson, Martin J. Golden, Robert Jackson, Jose Serrano.

CONTACT NUMBERS OF
INTRO SPONSORS
and COMMITTEE MEMBERS

LET THEM HEAR FROM YOU!

• (Queens 32) Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr.
  159-53 102 Street, 11414
  (718) 738-1111 (212) 788-7069
  addabbo@council.nyc.ny.us
• (Queens 27) Leroy G. Comrie
  113-43 Farmers Blvd., 11412
  (718) 776-3700 (212) 788-7084
• (Bronx 18) Ruben Diaz
  1750 Westchester Ave, 10472
  (718) 892-7513 (212) 788-6854
• (Brooklyn 37) Erik Martin Dilan
  786 Knickerbocker Ave., 11207
  (718) 453-4674 (212) 788-7284
  emdilan@council.nyc.ny.us
• (Bronx 16) Helen D. Foster
  1377 Jerome Ave., 10452
  (718) 588-7500 (212) 788-6856
• (Manhattan 1) Alan J. Gerson
  51 Chambers St. (Suite 429), 10007
  (212) 788-7722 (212) 788-7259
  gerson@council.nyc.ny.us
• (Queens 26) Eric N. Gioia
  (212) 788-7370
  gioia@council.nyc.ny.us
• (Brooklyn 43) Martin J. Golden
  9002 Third Avenue, 11209
  (718) 238-6078 (212) 788-7390
  golden@council.nyc.ny.us
• (Manhattan 9) Bill Perkins
  163 W. 125 St. 7th Floor, 10027
  (212) 662-4440 (212) 788-7396
• (Bronx 17) Jose M. Serrano
  384 East 149th Street (Suite 300), 10455
  (718) 402-6130 (212) 788-7384

STOP HARASSING ARTISTS!

To a Directory of Mr.Lederman's Essays

Robert Lederman is an artist, writer and activist and is also the President of the street artist advocacy group, A.R.T.I.S.T.
Click here for an archive of A.R.T.I.S.T. related news articles on the Freedom Forum website

His essays and Op-Eds have appeared in hundreds of alternative publications as well as the Daily News, Penthouse, Africa Sun Times, Street News and The Shadow.
Lederman was falsely arrested 41 times for his anti-Giuliani activities and was never convicted of any of the charges. As a result of the arrests, he's won four Federal lawsuits and overturned three laws.
He is best known for having created hundreds of paintings of Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler like dictator which were carried in demonstrations throughout the eight years of the Giuliani administration. Images of his paintings and articles about his arrests and lawsuits have appeared on all of the major television networks hundreds of times as well as frequently appearing in the NY Times, Daily News, NY Post, Newsday, Newsweek, People, The Washington Post, LA Times and NY Magazine.

Robert Lederman,
President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net

For a detailed exposition on the West Nile issue
http://www.nospray.org/
For an article on the Manhattan Institute go to
http://www.konformist.com/2000/rudyg.htm

If you would like to help oppose the spraying,
please write to the
No Spray Coalition
PO Box 334
Peck Slip Station
NYC, NY 10272-0334
or call the No Spray hotline at (718) 670-7110.

Any funds you can send to help continue the lawsuit
and this work are greatly appreciated.

Important Note:
Mr. Lederman has explained that his articles posted here are not to be taken as official statements by the No-Spray Coalition of which he is a member or of the "No-Spray" lawsuit in which he is a plaintiff.

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