Q. Does the city have a handbill ordinance? If no, how can Harvest Homecoming officials prohibit handbills?
A. No handbill ordinance found. No authority for any group or person to say they (handbills) are prohibited. Let me know if you need more.
This issue most recently arose in a Facebook discussion about Harvest Homecoming in the context of the new generation of locally owned, downtown businesses. Gregg Seidl observed:
If folks can walk around and hand out religious pamphlets, I sure as hell don't see why I can't hand out something promoting local businesses.Pete Lyons of DRC then provided the governing committee's justification, which we've been hearing for many years:
The rule according to HHC, is if you have a booth, you can hand out whatever you want. If you have a business, you're screwed. So a church (or any other group) that has a booth can have free domain to distribute whatever they want. If a business wants to distribute information, they MUST have a booth.Note also that if a downtown business owner wants to have a booth, or in practice, if a downtown business owner wants to have an clear entry portal for customers during the four days of the festival, he or she must purchase it. In effect, certain downtown business owners must pay Harvest Homecoming to remain open during the event -- and then be prohibited from using handbills to remind attendees that the business remains open.
Now, with the city attorney clearly stating that there exists no legal mechanism to suppress free speech during Harvest Homecoming, it will be interesting to see what happens when the first person tries to do so. The first three persons might well be myself, Gregg and Pete.
