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Contents this page were published in the July/August, 1998 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1998 WFP Collective, Inc.
In Chicago the war over newsracks is different from that in San Francisco and other localities. The two big daily newspapers, the Sun-Times and the Tribune, are co-plaintiffs with weekly newspapers such as the Defender in a suit against the city of Chicago, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
The issue in Chicago is the same as elsewhere: replacement of newspaper-owned individual newsracks with "pedmounts" containing divided space for a number of periodicals at a cost of $50 per space. The purported justification is to eliminate "clutter" or "visual blight" and "beautify" the sidewalks with pedmounts.
Lawyers for the publishers have argued in a filed complaint that the scheme fails to meet guidelines in US Supreme Court opinions requiring that any restriction on the right of publishers to use sidewalk vending machines be "narrowly tailored" to meet purported esthetic needs of a municipality. The lawyers also argue that the scheme "overly burdens protected speech by eliminating direct distribution and rationing access."
The judge hearing the Chicago case was sufficiently moved by the argument to issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting the City of Chicago from implementing the scheme while the issues are argued. Because the judge indicated that the city is in trouble over too broad an infringement on First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, at this writing the city had entered into settlement negotiations with the publishers.
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