[Seattle-editorial] NO FREE SPEECH AT SEATTLE'S PIKE PLACE MARKET

[sheelanagig at juno.com]

(Note: I finally got an antiharassment order served on Ben Schroeter and
Seattlelivemusic.net, which forced him to cease all postings on my legal
name domains, and anywhere on the internet for 2 months in my name, and
he was already on legal notice from Homestead.com, so I feel he is
finally reined in and I can go forward with my websites and writing
career again, now that he was peeled off my personhood, against his will,
by cops, yesterday! That law schooling did pay off even if I am not an
attorney, as I do know how to assert my legal rights...I encourage all of
you to go to law school as revenge on the system, contact me for info on
how to do it as a low-income person...and please leave my website under
my name on the article as I am just back up online after being down for a
while now due to Ben's shit on my sites and names...that shit was weird,
and I still do not understand WHAT Ben's motives in all this were, but he
was killing me online for no apparent reason!)

New Article ~
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NO FREE SPEECH AT SEATTLE'S PIKE PLACE MARKET
By Kirsten Anderberg
www.angelfire.com/la3/kirstenanderberg

Abbie Hoffman said, “Free means you don’t pay for it.” And America’s
constitutionally- guaranteed “Free Speech” has several freedom issues,
including freedom from payment,  freedom from political censorship, and
the freedom to perform anonymously. As a street performer, “free” speech
has been a long-fought battleground, and I see street performers as the
canaries in the mine. When a town wants to ban free speech, the first
thing they do is ban street performance and then label all political
speech activity as street performance, thereby prohibiting free speech
via street performance ordinances. Or, they sidestep and confuse
constitutional free speech issues, by clouding them with street
performance rules and regulations.

This technique of squashing 1st Amendment rights has been effectively
employed, in my opinion, by Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market (the one
with the guys throwing fish on TV), for the 27 years I have been a street
performer there. If you are a street performer and want to play under the
big glowing neon PUBLIC MARKET sign at “the Market” in Seattle, you will
be FORCED to pay the PDA (Preservation and Development Authority), a
management company hired by the City of Seattle to manage the Market, a
$25 fee for your free speech rights. If you walk to the east side of 1st
Avenue and Pike, you pay no fee and answer to no one when you street
perform, as that is considered a “public street.” If you stand on the
west side of Pike and 1st, you are forced to pay $25 by the PDA or
threatened with arrest for trespass, as the PDA is trying to say the
Market is “private property,” simply based on the property management
company hired by the city being private, which I do not think will fly in
a courtroom, honestly. Additionally, in the 1990’s, the City of Seattle
argued that the Market was PUBLIC property to fix something the PDA was
involved in that was known as “The New York Stock Exchange Scandal” where
the Market was almost sold to Wall Street investors. So there is legal
precedence that the Market IS public property, beyond the huge neon
“Public Market” sign, the City ownership of the property, etc. And
ironically, drunk “bums” begging for money have a RIGHT to be in the
Market, FOR FREE. (I use the term "bum" in quotations because that is the
generally recognized terminology, but let it be known that "bums" saved
my life as a homeless teen, protected me as a young street performer, and
I have only respect for "bums" and consider them family). But I do find
it an interesting comparison, that “street performers” are treated worse
than the “bum” population and are told we DO NOT have a right to be on
the street and are extorted for copies of our ID and money payments, with
the PDA acting like Mafia men collecting their take to not rough us up!

The Market has been challenged on this issue for decades by disgruntled
street performers, but this issue has not been properly tried in a
courtroom as an entire free speech issue yet. I, personally, have written
documentation that I have refuted and questioned the Market’s RIGHT to
charge me $25 to perform political comedy on public streets for decades.
As a matter of fact, on the Market Street Performer Permit forms, when it
asks what instrument you play or what your act is, for YEARS now, I have
written “political free speech” on that line! The Market has tried to
censor me several times and I have had to go to hearings and meetings to
explain the Constitution to their staff on several occasions now. The
Market has tried to take my paid “permit” for free speech on a public
street (?) away for singing “Girls have got to act a certain way or else,
they ain’t A-OK, always be willing, never get mad, or they call us
“bitch,” they tell us we’re bad…” I was in trouble for the word “bitch.”
Yet men were on the street at the same time, singing about balling
bitches all night long, and Artis the Spoonman was even screaming “Give
me back my foreskin” and no one flinched. I was told by the Market’s
elder cop Sam, that I should not sing the song “Myth in Genesis,” which
challenges religious myths and their relationship to women’s rights,
because “the Market is a family place.” It is amazing to me the double
standard of obscenity between men and women. So the Market has tried to
dictate WHAT I can sing for years, and has not succeeded at any attempt
they have made to censor me.

And I began to really resent their charging money for something they had
no right to sell me. For free speech, something I had a right to without
their approval, registration or permits. I went to the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) and they said the Market was required by law to
have a “FREE SPEECH SPOT.” So I asked the Market where it was and said I
would just perform there, instead of paying for their stupid permits. The
Market then handed me a list of RULES for the Free Speech Spot. I AM NOT
KIDDING YOU HERE, THIS IS COMPLETELY FACTUAL. The RULES for the “Free
Speech spot” LITERALLY SAID “no speeches, no music…” among other things!
I have been asking the Market “WHERE IS THE FREE SPEECH SPOT?” ever
since. A spot with “no speech or music” allowed is NOT a FREE SPEECH
spot. I am not an idiot. “Free Speech” has SPEECH right in the phrase!

I called the ACLU back and told them the rules for the free speech spot
included, “no speech or music.” The ACLU representative then said if I
went to the Free Speech spot at the Market, and sang political music, and
was arrested, they would take that case to court. So I went to the Free
Speech spot at the Market one day, and began to sing political messages
to the public in this age-old format of speaking out in the public
square. And the Market master told me to leave, he said that I was
violating the “no music” rule on that spot and that since I was singing,
I had to buy a street performer permit. But I was singing POLITICS. And
that is where this is problematic…I am not just a street musician who
wants to play on the Free Speech spot. I am a political activist who uses
performance to deliver political messages and that is a protected class
on public streets in America. I started speaking, giving a speech,
instead of singing. He then said “no speeches” were allowed. I told him a
Free Speech spot could not dictate what kind of speech was used, or it
would be “Constrained Speech,” not “Free Speech.” And reiterated “Free
Speech” required the “Speech” part! The Market master said I needed to
leave or he would call the Seattle Police on me for trespass. I told him
if he did the ACLU would sue the Market for no Free Speech spot. He
called the police, and I left as they rolled up, as I had to pick up my
kid from school later that afternoon and couldn’t go to jail that day. So
drunk “bums” begging for money have a right to be in the Market, they are
not trespassing, but political activists and street performers must pay
$25 to not be trespassing on public property at the Market? Weird.

I had discussions with Marc Dallas of Metro/King County in 2003 about the
strange situation where people had to get permits for free speech in the
bus tunnels at that point in time. In early 2003, street performers had
to give King County a copy of their state ID (driver’s license, etc.) and
had to obtain Letters of Authority (LOA)’s weekly to be allowed to play
there. After I argued successfully that the county had no right to treat
street performers preemptively like some criminal class, these roadblocks
were lifted. I argued that police could be called on street performers,
as well as anyone else in public, if they were breaking laws. So what was
the PURPOSE of them having our ID and forcing us to basically, register,
with them for our free speech? I also argued that I should be able to
perform ANONYMOUSLY on the street if I so desired, that anonymous
performance was part of what FREE speech implied. In late 2003, Metro
took my letters to the ACLU, who said I had legitimate legal gripes, and
Metro lifted the requirement for LOA’s or ID on file. You can just walk
in and play in the tunnels now.

So on the heels of that victory, I decided to go back to the Market and
ask about their nonexistent Free Speech spot in December 2003. And in a
bizarre twist, I just received a copy of the NEW “Guidelines for use of
the free speech space” at the Market. Although these NEW guidelines are
an improvement on the old ones that actually said “NO SPEECH, NO MUSIC,”
they still are riffled with problems. Here are the new rules:

GUIDELINES FOR USE OF FREE SPEECH SPACE
1.  The space underneath the pergola east of the existing performer spot
and directly adjacent to the Information Booth along Pike Place shall be
set aside for this use the hours of 10:00 a.m. 7:00 p.m. any day the
Market is open.

2.  The space is available at no charge.

3.  This space is for political activity and speech and although
political “performances” are allowed (subject to noise restrictions), the
space is not a street performer space.  Street performers must use street
performance spaces.  

4.  Sales are not permitted.  Solicitations for organized political or
charitable entities supported by the speaker are permitted. 
Solicitations for donations to the personal funds of the speaker may
cause the speaker to be characterized as a “street performer” and
required to get a street performer’s permit and use street performer
spaces.

5.  The space is available on a first come, first serve basis.  If there
is a conflicting demand of space, the Market Master will use their
discretion in allocation of time for use of this space. 

6.  Volume must be moderated so that there is non-interference with
neighboring businesses or buskers. 


Rule #6 constructively eliminates the Free Speech spot, for instance,
since they put the Free Speech spot directly on top of, about 20 feet
from, a sanctioned street performer spot. (The Market forces street
performers to only perform on these little red spots they paint on the
streets and we can only play there, or we are “trespassing!”) So, they
put the Free Speech spot a few feet from the performer or “busker” spot,
and then say if the Free Speech spot conflicts with the busker spot,
which is ridiculously close, then the Free Speech spot is shut down. Now,
that is just like saying “No Speech, No music.” It is constructively
identical, actually.

And check out Rule #4! I love the way government entities are always
trying to isolate out street performers as some kind of social class
separate unto itself…So political organizations can ask for donations,
but if you are a SPEAKER (again, they want NO SPEECH there!) and you
solicit donations like everyone and anyone else using the spot
politically, you “MAY” be “characterized” as a street performer and made
to pay their stupid “Free Speech” FEES. Does anyone else see a problem
here? No, I WANT TO BE GUARANTEED that if I sing POLITICAL SONGS ON THE
FREE SPEECH SPOT THAT IT WILL BE FREE ~ NO MONEY, NO CENSORSHIP, NO ID
REQUIRED, NO TRESPASS TICKETS. Not “Oh, you MAY be able to use the spot
for “Free Speech” BUT you MAY NOT be able to use it, oh, we will just
decide arbitrarily as we go…” No! That is not the way it works with
public property! 

So, I ask the Pike Place Market, again, for the 10th year in a row, WHERE
IS YOUR FREE SPEECH SPOT AS REQUIRED BY LAW?
  

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