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April 30, 2005
NY1: More Arrests At Monthly Critical Mass Ride
From NY1
Police say 34 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and other charges at Friday night's Critical Mass bike ride.The event, which is held on the last Friday of every month, has been at the center of various court hearings in the past.
Citing public safety concerns, the NYPD has been trying to force riders to seek a permit for their protests.
Participants say the rally is meant to promote alternative modes of transportation.
They say the events are peaceful and that the city's attempts to stop them violate their rights.
"I've been doing this for about a year now and last year at this point it was the most peaceful thing I've ever been a part of. I mean, there was maybe about 600 of us in April last year. We rode out, it was a great night. And it's just about fun and having, you know, an activity that you can do outside," said one Critical Mass rider. "Now it's kind of gotten a little bit more depressing with the police clamping down on everybody."
Last month, 37 people were picked up and 50 bikes seized.
Before this latest ride, the Police Department released a statement saying: "As we have in the past, we will arrest people who are violating the law and endangering the safety of the public."
Video at NY1.
Posted by at 12:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NYTimes: At Least 18 Arrests Made in Tense Night of a Monthly Cycling Protest
From NYTimes
By KAREEM FAHIM and JIM DWYER
Under tense circumstances, the monthly Critical Mass bicycle ride set out last night from multiple locations in Manhattan, in an attempt by the riders to thwart a police crackdown.The police did not supply arrest numbers last night, but a lawyer who works with the riders, Julia Cohen, said at least 18 were detained.
Up to 400 people, many of them without bicycles, had gathered in Union Square Park before riders fanned out to locations around downtown Manhattan, including Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, and Madison Square Park in the Flatiron District.In one of the first arrests of the evening, a young woman who was straddling her bike and walking it out of the south end of Union Square Park was seized and personally arrested by Assistant Police Chief Bruce H. Smolka Jr.
"You're riding your bicycle on the sidewalk," Chief Smolka said. "You're under arrest."
The woman protested that she had done nothing wrong. The chief insisted that she get off her bicycle immediately, and then he tried to pull her off. The woman argued, and then other police officers, some of them wearing plainclothes, joined the chief and forcibly removed the woman from the bike.
Ride participants tried to retrieve the woman's bike and scuffled with police officers, who then arrested a second woman.
The sight of a senior chief in the Police Department struggling in a crowded public place with the woman roused the gathering of people.
Cries of "Let her go, let her go," and "fascist state" filled the air, as Chief Smolka and other officers led the woman into a van. A line of 10 motorcycles then sealed the edge of the sidewalk at the intersection of 14th Street and Union Square East. The arrested woman began to give her name in response to a question from a reporter, but only uttered one word - "Lisa" - before she was pushed into the van and the reporter was forced away from her.
Chief Smolka is the police official in charge of southern Manhattan, and oversaw many of the mass arrests made in August before and during the Republican National Convention, including more than 100 arrests of bicyclists at a Critical Mass ride that swelled to include 5,000 riders.
Since then, the mass rides, which were conducted peacefully for several years before that, have become a point of contention with the Police Department.
Police officials have sought to require permits for the rides, which are intended to promote pollution-free transportation. They have filed for injunctions, first in federal court and more recently in state court. And they have warned that riders who run red lights, block intersections or otherwise break the law will be arrested.
In recent months, a cat-and-mouse game has developed, in which the riders try to outrun the police by starting from multiple locations, using cellphone text messages to spread the word. These efforts have been met by increasing shows of force with police officers deployed on foot and motorcycle, and in vans and helicopters. Last night, all of them were darting through the narrow confines of Lower Manhattan.
Soon after the ride began, a freelance reporter for The New York Times, Colin Moynihan, was standing on a sidewalk at Sixth Street and Avenue A interviewing people when he was briefly detained and handcuffed. He was later released by the police without charges.
So it goes on - and they're still busting reporters (and legal observers?). Still looking for other reports... with NYC Indymedia down due to hackers, it's hard to get first-hand reports. Anyone?
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April 29, 2005
Gothamist interviews Matthew Roth
TimesUp! member, Siegel campaign volunteer, and CM lawsuit defendant Matthew Roth is interviewed at Gothamist today.
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April 11, 2005
Democratic Mayoral Candidates on CM
Democrat Gifford Miller doesn't look like much of an ally, though perhaps he just needs convincing; at any rate, he pretty much dodged the issue when questioned by the Gotham Gazette. Yes, it's terrific that he understands we have a First Amendment, but he refuses to outright condemn the harrassment of CM and/or to promise to end that harrasment if elected:
QUESTION: Once a month, Union Square Park becomes a war zone with a massive police presence surrounding the park and arresting people on bicycles. Will you end the existing NYPD/Bloomberg policy and work with Critical Mass they way they used to before the Republican Convention?Miller: People have a right to ride a bike in this city, but they have to abide by the laws. We used to make it possible for people to march and do all things across the city before this mayor took office and the RNC came to the city. I was critical at the time and continued to be critical of the way the mayor welcomed the Republican National Convention but did not seem to understand that he had the responsibility to welcome those whose views were not on display at Madison Square Garden. It was OK for people to go to a Dave Matthews Band in Central Park, so it ought to have been OK to have protestors exercise their First Amendment rights in Central Park. We have to have a police department that works with groups to accomplish the kinds of activities connected to that.
Fernando Ferrer does slightly better:
Q: Follow up question on police. I submit that we are wasting huge amounts of money on the last Friday of every month with the police surrounding Union Square Park…. Will you change the existing policy of the mayor and police commissioner in working with the group Critical Mass?Ferrer: I think the theory of preemption is as bankrupt in New York as it has proved to be in Iraq.
As the election season gears up, it's time to make our voices heard - and not just at the monthly rides. If you value your freedoms, you've gotta step up to the plate and get people elected who are ready to represent you and to protect your rights and the Constitution. I'm not ready myself to support any of the mayoral candidates - I just haven't found one I can tolerate - but I'm going to do everything I can to get bike-rights defender Norman Siegel elected to the office of Public Advocate and to get Eliot Spitzer elected Governor.
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April 10, 2005
NY Newsday Letter to the Editor: Why bother the bikers?
From NYNewsday
Why bother the bikers?The city schools are in dire need of adequate funding, and the subways are getting more expensive and providing worse service than ever before. Yet every month, countless precious taxpayer dollars are wasted locking down Union Square with barricades and hundreds of police officers in order to arrest bicyclists who peacefully gather for legal bike rides ["Bicyclists protest call for permits," News, March 28].
Critical Mass riders disappear from view 5 minutes after they pass an intersection. But our education and transit crises aren't going anywhere anytime soon with this mayor and his misplaced priorities at the helm.
Andrew Dzija
Brooklyn
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April 06, 2005
New York Press: DEPT. OF AGGRAVATION
From New York Press
By Aaron Naparstek
Nipped in the Budnick
In June of 2003, Transportation Alternatives bike program director Noah Budnick and I had a meeting with a small group of high-level Department of Transportation officials at the agency's Brooklyn borough commissioner's office. At the time, I was working as a coordinator for T.A.'s Brooklyn Committee. The issue at the very top of our agenda that day was safer bicycle and pedestrian access to the Manhattan Bridge. We brought a video to the meeting so DOT officials could clearly see how dangerous the on- and off-ramps of the Manhattan Bridge were for cyclists. We told DOT officials in no uncertain terms that the Manhattan Bridge was a disaster waiting to happen.Wait no longer. On Tuesday, March 29 at about 7 p.m., Noah Budnick had a disastrous crash on Sands Street in Brooklyn, just after exiting the Manhattan Bridge bike path. Though he was wearing a helmet, Budnick suffered severe head trauma. He is now in stable condition, floating in and out of consciousness in a hospital intensive care unit.
Police initially said that Budnick's crash was caused by a hit-and-run driver. Now they say that he dropped into a pothole after swerving to avoid a vehicle parked in the bike lane. There are still "many questions about inconsistencies and omissions in the accident report," T.A. says.
What I can say for certain is this: Despite major improvements made to the bike path on the Manhattan Bridge since our meeting two years ago, access to the bridge is still extremely dangerous, especially on the Brooklyn side.
I don't need to use Noah's crash to make the point. Last summer I had the worst bike crash of my life only a few yards away from where Budnick wiped out. Riding toward a pothole, I momentarily peeked back over my shoulder to see if I could safely merge to my left. By the time my eyes were back on the road in front of me, my front wheel had dipped into a series of abrupt ripples in the asphalt. Merely a nuisance to motorists, these kinds of hazards are devastating to cyclists. In a split second, my bike and I were crumpled on the pavement directly in front of a BQE on-ramp. If a truck had been behind me, accelerating onto the expressway, I'd have been roadkill.
Are Budnick and I lousy riders? I don't think so. Noah is a skilled and experienced urban cyclist, and I am pathologically careful. I ride under the assumption that drivers don't see me and, even if they do, they'd be perfectly content to kill me and keep going.
All you have to do is spend some time riding a bike in cities like Berlin, London, Montreal or Portland to understand the problem. New York City is still way too hostile an environment for cycling despite the fact that in an era of increasing subway fares, air pollution, gas prices and traffic congestion, record numbers of commuters are pedaling. Let's hope Budnick gets better soon. Few have worked harder and done more to improve New York City's cycling environment.
Bliss Out
As if Budnick's crash, 37 more arrests at the March Critical Mass ride, and the presence of the New York International Auto Show weren't enough to give one the sense that some sort of vast anti-bike conspiracy is underway, George Bliss, the founding father of New York City's burgeoning pedicab industry, has been curbed by a bogus law suit.
The accident that led to the lawsuit occurred in December 2001 when the pedicab carrying Dr. Jerome Perlmutter, a dentist from Florida, and his wife was hit and slowly dragged to the curb by a tour bus in front of the Plaza Hotel.
The tour bus operator was clearly at fault, and Bliss's driver did nothing wrong. But unlike many of his competitors, Bliss's cabs and drivers are insured, making him a target for the Perlmutters' attorney. Rather than trying to defend a company that operates gigantic tricycles, Bliss's insurer chose to settle and cancel Bliss's coverage. They paid the Perlmutters $150,000 while the tour bus operator shelled out $1.75 million. Ê
"We'd have been better off if we didn't have insurance," says Bliss. "The irony is that by doing the right thing and providing liability insurance to my drivers, I get screwed."
There are now about 200 pedicabs operating in the city. With no barriers to enter the business, an increasing number are run by unscrupulous players. Bliss has been pushing the Department of Consumer Affairs to begin requiring a simple revocable pedicab license and liability insurance for drivers. Until that happens, the city's best pedicab operator is closed for business.
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Villager: Bicyclists have an axe to grind over lock-cutting
From The Villager
By the always-awesome superjournalist Lincoln Anderson
Critical Mass bike riders are protesting that police did not give them summonses.That’s what happened — or, rather, didn’t happen — when the cyclists went to retrieve their confiscated bicycles at a Police Department warehouse in Greenpoint last Friday and this Monday. They got back their bikes, but — contrary to what they had been led to expect when their bikes were seized by police during the March 25 Critical Mass event — did not receive summonses.
The bikers and their attorneys are calling this a violation of the restraining order issued last October by federal Judge William Pauley that barred police from sawing locks on bicycles and seizing the bikes without giving the owner a ticket. According to Gideon Oliver, an attorney representing the cyclists, they may sue the city over the latest seizures.“Judge Pauley issued an injunction against these seizures in September — and [the police] did it again in March,” Oliver said. “It’s something that we’re certainly going to raise again in court.”
The federal case brought in September over police cutting locks and seizing bikes is wrapping up, with both the bikers and city moving for summary judgment.
Fifty bikes were seized and 37 arrests made at last month’s Critical Mass. Barbara Ross, whose bike was among those confiscated, said it quickly became clear police were planning a preemptive mass arrest of the bikers on 17th St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. — just half a block from the start of the ride — so she locked her bike to a scaffolding. She and a friend went into an upscale Japanese restaurant — “They asked if we had reservations. We definitely looked out of place in our bike helmets,” she noted — and sat at the bar while they watched police saw their locks and take their bikes.
“They took every bike on the block,” Ross noted. “If someone not in the ride had had their bike there and came by later, they would have thought it was stolen.”
According to Oliver, the police are now claiming the confiscations of locked bikes is justified under a section of the administrative code allowing police to remove any “unattended box or bale” of merchandise on the street.
In a statement, Gabe Taussig, chief of the Administrative Law Division of the city’s Law Department, said, “In general, it is difficult to answer…questions regarding a potential lawsuit, since we don’t know what the legal basis for the threatened lawsuit might be. However, in regards to the recent Critical Bike Mass happenings, we believe that the N.Y.P.D. acted lawfully when they seized the bicycles.”
The city also recently brought suit in state court to try to bar Critical Mass from gathering in Union Sq. Park unless the ride gets a permit. Oliver said the event has no leaders and happens organically and so no one is likely to apply for a permit. However, he said there is talk by some — including civil rights attorney Norman Siegel — who has also been representing the cyclists, of requesting a permit for Union Sq.’s north plaza for April 29, the evening of the next Critical Mass ride. Oliver said the event would be a rally for free speech and against the city’s demand for the bicyclists to have a permit for 20 or more of them to assemble at Union Sq.
Once again the Villager comes through. It's rapidly becoming my favorite newspaper...
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April 05, 2005
Greens Defend Critical Mass: 'Bikers are not criminals'
The Green party rides to CM's defense!
Green Party press release
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green leaders spoke out against efforts by law enforcement to target Critical Mass, defending cyclists' right to assemble.Critical Mass, which holds mass bicycle rides to celebrate the bicycle as a healthy alternative to the automobile, has been the target of recent mass arrests and confiscation of bicycles.
"Police could easily allow Critical Mass rides to proceed without incident, instead of disrupting them and arresting riders," said Henry Lawrence, past President of the Florida Bicycle Association and Florida Green Party candidate for Bay County Commissioner in 2004. "Cities should make every attempt to accommodate bikes. Cities face increasing traffic demands, the effects of car exhaust such as asthma epidemics among children, and global warming. Bicycles represent one of the best hopes for clean urban transportation."
At least 37 Critical Mass participants were arrested in New York City on Friday, March 25; riders claim frequent harassment by police and city officials in New York and other cities. More than 250 riders were arrested and at least 338 bicycles were confiscated during the Republican National Convention in August 2004.
"If bikers need a permit in order to gather in a public space, why isn't a similar permit required for cars?", asked Hank Chapot, archivist for the Green Party of California who has participated in Critical Mass rides in San Francisco, Berkeley, and London. "The permit requirement allows arbitrary arrest of bicyclists, including those who aren't involved in Critical Mass events but happen to be nearby."
"When you consider the double-edged permit requirement -- one from the Parks Department for cyclists gathering on a paved part of Union Square Park, and the second because the NYPD believes it to be a procession or parade -- add the two and what you have is zero public space for free association and expression," said Peter Meitzler, a registered Green and regular "masser" from New York City.
Greens called the suppression of Critical Mass and a recent New York City lawsuit to gag Times Up, a nonprofit organization that has mentored Critical Mass, part of a larger campaign to criminalize protest.
"We see a pattern in the increasing police suppression of public protest, the removal of anyone considered a protest risk from President Bush's public appearances, and efforts by public officials to vilify various groups, from Critical Mass to unions to AARP, that disagree with administration policy," said Jody Grage Haug, Washington State Green and co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "People have been banned from the President's 'town hall' meetings for wearing the wrong tee shirt or the wrong bumper sticker on their fenders or merely publishing their opposition to ideas like Mr. Bush's plan to privatize of Social Security."
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April 04, 2005
NY1: Bikes Returned, But Critical Mass Riders Remain Angry
From NY1
A group of Critical Mass riders get their bikes back from
police, but they're not exactly happy about it.The bikes were among 50 that were seized during last month's
ride. Most were returned last Friday, but a few remaining
bikers didn't get their rides back until Monday.The riders say they were never charged or even issued a summons,
and so they're considering a lawsuit for illegal seizure."I was not arrested and I was not doing anything illegal, but
the police still cut my lock with a saw and confiscated my
property," said Critical Mass rider Jamie Favaro."The police were basically told by a federal judge they cannot
take property without linking it to an arrest, and they're
basically in contempt of court for disobeying a federal judge's
orders," said fellow rider Michael Green.For its part, the NYPD says the bikes were seized because they
were chained illegally.A spokesman for the department says while they recognize the
inconvenience of having a bike seized, it can be avoided by not
chaining a bike illegally in the city.
Total bullshit from the City. Again. Doesn't Mike know this is an election year?
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April 01, 2005
Villager: With lawsuit and nets, city keeps chasing Critical Mass
From the insanely supportive Villager
By the insanely awesome Jefferson Siegel
In the city’s latest legal maneuver against the monthly Critical Mass bike ride in Manhattan, just days before last Friday’s ride, the city issued a controversial summons to four members of Time’s Up!, an environmental action group on E. Houston St. that supports, but claims it does not organize, the Critical Mass ride.In the few days it has been circulating, the 13-page paper has raised concerns about more than just the legality of a bike ride. Buried in the legalese of park and parade permits is an item that has drawn a chorus of criticism from constitutional lawyers and activists. Under the “Third Cause of Action,” Item 40 claims, in part, “...it is unlawful to advertise the time and location of a meeting or group activity in a City park.” Concluding in the “Wherefore’s,” the city seeks to permanently stop “the defendants, and all those acting in concert with them, from advertising that Critical Mass bicycle ride participants gather in Union Square Park (or any other City Park).”
The four Time’s Up! members named in the suit are Bill DiPaola, Matthew Roth, Leah Rorvig and Brandon Neubauer.
DiPaola, who founded Time’s Up! 18 years ago, voiced concern on the day of the ride. “It is really shocking, where you have a bunch of people that have been working for free, over 100 people for 18 years promoting this city, that the city, instead of rewarding us, working with us on issues, has come out and filed a suit against us.” Standing in the group’s headquarters on E. Houston St., he continued, “If they deem something we do is illegal — we can’t talk about it, we can’t advertise it, or we can’t participate in it — that is just unbelievable and it shows the state of what I like to call corporatization of our public parks and our public spaces.”
Robin Binder, deputy chief of the Administrative Law Division of the city’s Law Department and an attorney involved in the lawsuit, said, “We believe that the claim that Time’s Up! is not a sponsor of the local Critical Mass bike rides is belied by its own actions, including the information contained on their own Web site. It will be up to the court to resolve this factual dispute.”
There was palpable tension in the air last Friday evening. As Greenmarket vendors packed up their fruits and vegetables, a handful of bike riders arrived in Union Sq.’s north plaza, which had been completely surrounded by metal barricades. Word of the city’s lawsuit had traveled fast on bike blogs and Web sites. On this night, riders were slow in arriving, uneasy about a potential crackdown. As they slowly filled the darkening plaza, Norman Siegel, a candidate for public advocate and the attorney representing Critical Mass riders, expressed his concerns at the language in the new summons.
“No court has said that it’s unlawful to stand in Union Sq. Park without a permit,” Siegel said. “If the city of New York succeeds here, it would have huge implications for social protest movements, not only in New York, but throughout America. For example, the idea that S.C.L.C. [the Southern Christian Leadership Conference], Dr. King, could not publicize and tell people to gather, to sit in at a lunch counter, that would have been unlawful at that time. People were challenging the idea of segregation. So the idea that you could not publicize the gathering to challenge unlawful laws is alien to what American history is all about and we will vigorously oppose that in the state court.”
As night fell, over 100 cyclists mingled in the plaza, talking but wary of the growing police presence just outside the barricades. A police loudspeaker broadcast a warning that riding in a procession without a permit would result in arrests. In a counterpoint, from the other end of the plaza, another booming voice caught the crowd’s attention. Striding into the crowd, clad in his familiar white suit and collar was Reverend Billy. The reverend, real name Bill Talen, a longtime activist and proselytizer against consumerism, gave the nervous riders a pep talk.
“What’s more peaceable than a bicycle? Hallelujah!” he yelled into a white paper megaphone. Lowering his voice a notch, but still serious in tone, he explained his presence. “The feeling that we cannot peaceably assemble flies directly in the face of a famous First Amendment phrase that has been defended for 250 years by everybody from Thomas Jefferson to Louis Brandeis to Martin Luther King. What they’re doing is they’re saying, ‘We will be the legislators — we the cops, we the police, we the city — we will be the legislators until the courts can catch up to our administrative mandate, and that might take days or weeks or months, but in that period of time, we will control you, we’ll impound your bicycles, and we will fly in the face of the Bill of Rights.’”
As if by some unheard signal, the riders pointed their bikes west and started pedaling out of the plaza. They did not get far. As soon as the first bikes entered 17th St., police blocked off the street with orange netting and stopped vehicular traffic heading down Broadway. Riders forced south were blocked by more netting across 16th St. A lucky few were diverted back into the park.
Stephen Rowley, an N.Y.U. student, was one of the first to be arrested. “I start biking around, trying to go and they netted a bunch of the exits. Basically, I was trying to leave the premises without participating in the so-called ‘procession’ and got arrested in the process of asking an officer how to leave. I was walking my bike.”
One block west, two members of Copwatch, a group that videotapes police actions at public events, pointed a camera at police spreading orange nets across Fifth Ave., creating a “tunnel” on 17th St.
Zachariah Artstein held the camera as he talked. “They [police] threw up nets on both sides of Fifth Ave. It looks like they set up a mass-arrest situation on 17th St. between Fifth and Sixth. Once they set up the nets they arrested five riders.”
Riders entering 17th St. saw a massive police presence ahead of them. Many dismounted; some locked their bikes to scaffolding poles, others walked their bikes onto the sidewalk. Hoping to avoid arrest by detouring into a through-block parking lot, they found the lot was netted and closed. Police kept moving everyone west towards a group of arresting officers.
William Laviano normally rides his bike to work in Chelsea. He believes police “created a mousetrap, sealed off every possible exit, trapped [riders] preemptively.” He was walking his bike on the sidewalk, he said, “when I realized I was in a cage already. I placed my bike against a wall, I didn’t chain my bike and waited for my turn to be handcuffed.”
As a line of riders stood handcuffed in the middle of the street, a power saw roared into life. Blasts of orange sparks shot out as police cut the locks of bikes secured to scaffolding poles. As a sergeant supervised the cutting of one lock, a man approached on foot and was given two options: either unlock the bike, receive an $80 ticket and walk away, or have the expensive lock cut, the bike seized and pay the fine when he came to claim it. He took the ticket and unlocked his bike.
Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department’s top spokesperson, explained the department’s rationale: “If you had a group of motorists who, every Friday, decided as a group they were going to ride as a group and violate traffic laws, I can assure you they would be arrested and their cars would be seized.”
Gideon Oliver, a civil rights attorney and legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild, spoke to the issue of lock-cutting over the roar of the power saw. “The seizures of these bicycles are extremely constitutionally suspect,” Oliver said. “It seems that the position they [the police] are taking is because they’re giving people summonses that, after they take the bikes, that constitutes good notice under the due process clause of the Constitution.” Tickets bore the name of the Environmental Control Board.
The N.Y.P.D.’s Browne commented, “We can seize bikes that are illegally padlocked. I don’t think it’s a constitutional issue at all.”
An unlucky tourist, Fran Corcoran from Philadelphia, was not in the ride but received a ticket. “I come to the city all the time with my bike,” Corcoran said. “I was up at the Met and then I biked down to the park. I had dinner in the Village, then I came over to this bar [Splash] where I usually have a drink and then I go home on the train.”
Hearing the commotion outside, he left the W. 17th St. bar to find his lock broken and his bike missing. Spotting it on the top of a pile of bikes in a police truck, he just managed to retrieve it. “I spent about $100 up here [in Manhattan] today, more than $100, and this is how the establishment of the New York area pays me back? It gives me a summons for another $80. I had no idea this was going on. It doesn’t end a nice day very nicely.”
Riders in handcuffs waiting to be photographed stood in a line in the middle of 17th St. They were asked to identify their bikes, which were then tagged and piled in the middle of the street before being loaded onto the truck.
Around 8:30 p.m., a paddy wagon and a police bus left for the Seventh Precinct on Pitt St. Thirty-seven riders had been arrested; 33 would be released by 4 a.m. Saturday morning. Four others were found to have outstanding warrants and were held until early Sunday morning. Some 50 bicycles were seized.
At a hastily arranged news conference Sunday morning at Time’s Up!, attorney Siegel and half a dozen riders who had been arrested spoke out. “Preemptive arrests are antithetical to American jurisprudence,” Siegel said to a row of TV cameras. Commenting on the city’s summons enjoining any publicizing of the rides, he said, “This argument is very troubling. It’s a prior restraint and a violation of the First Amendment.”
Binder of the city’s Law Department said the law prohibits more than 20 people from gathering in a city park without a permit. “Nobody has a First Amendment right to publicize unlawful activity,” she said.
Time’s Up! now burdened with growing legal expenses, held the first of several planned fundraising meetings at its headquarters Monday night. Lawyers plan their response to the lawsuit, and the constitutional issues it raises, by April 19.
“I don’t think the city gets it,” said DiPaola. “They think we’re in charge of it but it’s like the same kind of thing we did with the community gardens. I don’t think the city understands, we’re just trying to support sustainable community.
“They don’t want to provide the infrasturucture, the positive environmental and safe infrastructure for bicyclists,” DiPaola said. “It has nothing to do with the ride.”
As always, photos and more at The Villager.
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