Venice Boardwalk Vending Ban Voided

Vegetarians, peaceniks and other activists are free to hawk their wares on the Venice Beach boardwalk after a federal appeals court overturned a city ordinance Monday that severely limited street vending.

In a unanimous decision, the three judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Los Angeles ordinance violated the 1st Amendment’s freedom of speech protections.

“Even though I’m an anarchist, I’d be a fool not to admit that in this case the court system worked in our favor,” said Robert “Jingles” Newman, one of two longtime Venice street vendors who sued the city.

Newman runs a “Meat Is Murder” booth, selling T-shirts and bumper stickers to promote his group, Animal Freedom Fighters. Police cited Newman and co-plaintiff Harry Perry, a roller-skating street musician, for violating the law in April 1995.

The 1991 law, passed after nearby merchants complained that unlicensed street vendors were unjustly taking away their business, allowed street sales only by newspapers and nonprofit organizations. It banned many of the counterculture activists whose sales of buttons, religious tracts and other items help give Venice Beach its unique flavor.

“Now we have a situation where the law says that we’re all equal,” said attorney James H. Fosbinder, who represented the plaintiffs. “If we had lost, it would have meant that the 1st Amendment in Los Angeles applied to the L.A. Times and not much else.”

The city attorney’s office--which had not enforced the law since 1995, when Fosbinder’s clients obtained a court injunction--said the City Council would decide whether to appeal Monday’s ruling.

At issue in Perry-Jingles vs. Los Angeles et al. was whether the unlicensed vendors, lacking nonprofit status, were protected under the 1st Amendment when they sold items espousing “religious, philosophical or ideological messages.”

The judges said the plaintiffs’ activities were protected under the Constitution. They also criticized the city ordinance for failing to make a reasonable case for granting an exemption to nonprofit organizations.

Newman promoted vegetarianism, while Perry solicited donations and sold recordings of music with religious overtones. The court ruled that both men had their constitutional rights violated when they were cited by police.

“These are expressive items, and they do not lose their constitutional protection simply because they are sold rather than given away,” the judges wrote.

The appeals court decision overturned a 1996 lower court ruling in favor of the city.

Deputy City Atty. Vivienne Swanigan-Crenshaw, who argued the appeals court case for the city, said she had not read the decision and could not comment on it.

On the sand-swept boardwalk, the decision was greeted with a mixture of elation and indifference.

Co-plaintiff Perry, a turbaned and guitar-playing Sikh, called out “Hooray!” when a reporter caught up with him on the boardwalk and told him of the ruling.

“This argument has been going on for a decade,” he said. “At last, I can get my message out and sell my CDs without fear.”

Nearby, a black-and-white police van cruised past. “A lot of officers are off the hook too,” Perry said. “Whether they liked it or not, it was their job to stop me from selling my CDs,” which he said contain unconventional, sometimes controversial religious-based lyrics.

“Now,” he said, “the cops don’t have to come up and stop us.”

Damien Repasi, 19, at a table covered with materials advocating the legalization of the plant that produces both hemp and marijuana, said that he and others had been arrested four times by police for selling non-marijuana hemp products, such as handbags.

The police, he said, arrest them because they don’t like their point of view.

“I think the ruling is great,” he said. “I feel safer out here now.”

Longtime Venice peace activist Jerry Rubin called the decision a great victory. He had once organized a group opposed to the ordinance.

“This is really reason to celebrate,” Rubin said. He called the boardwalk, with its kaleidoscope of rabble-rousers and gurus, “our freedom strip.”

“These people are trying to protect freedoms,” he added. “It’s an ongoing battle. People will have to realize that this is what makes Venice Beach and America precious.”