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

[BFGalbraith]

I want to feature this in the next few days:

> 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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=====
-Benjamin 

"BFGalbraith"- bfgalbraith at users.sourceforge.net 
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