Anaheim Law on Park Use Prompts Suit From ACLU : Courts: The ordinance bars people with certain drug convictions. The civil liberties group says the rarely enforced rule ‘goes too far.’

A 2-year-old city ordinance barring people with certain drug convictions from using public parks is unconstitutional, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California contends in a lawsuit filed in federal court Friday.

At a news conference across the street from La Palma Park, ACLU officials said they are seeking to overturn the rarely enforced ordinance. The city law unjustly restricts rights to petition the government for redress of grievances, free speech and free assembly, charged ACLU officials.

“It’s a well-intentioned ordinance that simply goes too far,” said ACLU attorney Mark Silverstein. “Measures like this let politicians off the hook, substituting phony rhetoric for measures that work.”

But city officials defended the ordinance enacted in October, 1993, as a means to help police crack down on rising drug sales in parks.

“We believe it’s constitutional,” said Eleanor Egan, senior assistant city attorney for Anaheim. “It’s a legitimate regulation that serves a legitimate purpose.”

Under the ordinance, drug offenders are banned from visiting the city’s 40 parks for up to three years after their convictions or release from custody. The Anaheim police have cited only four people for violating the ordinance, according to Anaheim officials.

The law applies to anyone convicted of selling drugs, possessing drugs for sale or, if the offense occurred in a park, possessing drugs. Violation of the ordinance is a misdemeanor, and offenders face a maximum six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The ACLU is representing three organizations who advocate legalizing marijuana in certain medical situations, and three individuals with minor convictions involving the sale of marijuana. The three individuals want to attend a May 25 rally in La Palma Park organized to garner signatures for a proposed state ballot measure, called the Compassion Use initiative, which would expand the ability of physicians to prescribe marijuana.

However, under the city’s ordinance, the three who want to attend the rally cannot,because of their recent drug convictions, say ACLU officials.

“I feel a deep hurt that I can’t go into a park I used as a child to speak out in the park,” said Craig McClain, 38, who grew up in Fullerton and was permanently disabled after a recent construction accident.

McClain pleaded guilty in February to growing five marijuana plants at his current home in Modesto. Although he claimed the marijuana was to relieve his constant back pain, McClain said his conviction also included a charge of selling the drug.

“I feel I’m being made to suffer for some archaic law,” said McClain, who has undergone six major surgeries for back pain. “I’m not a criminal or a threat to anyone. I just want to tell people about the initiative.”

The city ordinance will, in effect, bar speakers from the rally whose arguments might be the most persuasive, ACLU attorneys said.

“Every effective drug abuse prevention program has, at its core, the testimony of recovered drug abusers who have more credibility with potential addicts than anyone,” Silverstein said. “Yet, this ordinance stifles their message if it is delivered within 50 feet of an Anaheim city park.”

A hearing on the lawsuit has been tentatively scheduled for May 22, Silverstein said.