The Silencing of the Lambs

Our Founding Fathers are spinning in their respective graves today. For under the cover of darkness, the City of Chicago outlawed "free" news publications (HT Newsbusters).

Bizarre as it may seem, on Feb. 7, 2007, the City Council voted 50-0 to outlaw the distribution of free newspapers, periodicals, and directories inside the city limits. Better call 311 to get the phone number for your alderman if you’d like to complain about this because using a White or Yellow Pages phone book that was delivered to your door recently may also make you a partner to a crime.

According to Title 10, Chapter 8 of the Municipal Code, as amended in February, an effort by Chicago’s city fathers to control litter has now made it unlawful to distribute free “newspapers, periodicals and directories of any kind on any public way or other public place or on the premise of private property in the city in such a manner that it is reasonably foreseeable that such distribution will cause litter.”

How many times have we all seen pieces of newpaper blowing around our neighborhoods. We all know that this can be due to a number of factors including (but not limited to) twine that has come untied, paper blown out of an open recycling bin, less than accurate delivery reps...shoot the list could go on for days.

Inside Publications (a free neighborhood weekly and the outlet that broke the story) goes on to ask who and how the determination of "reasonably forseeable" could be made.

This leaves open the question of which newspapers could or would be considered “litter.” If a future issue of Hoy, a Spanish language newspaper owned by the Tribune Company that is delivered for free throughout much of the 1st Ward, endorses an opponent of Ald. Manny Flores (1st) for alderman in a future election, could it be considered “litter” by the incumbent? He was the lead sponsor of this legislation, along with Ald. Virginia Rugai (19th).

In typical Chicago fashion, word of this did not get out until just recently and now that the media has found out, the Aldermen that unamiously supported this measure are reluctant to discuss it on the record - at first.

Inside Publications talked to several other aldermen including Ald. Vi Daley (43rd) last week after discovering this legislation, but those conversations were off the record. This week we called back to speak on the record. Ald. Daley assured Inside that the amended legislation was aimed at the litter created by the distribution of fliers, coupons, and menus — not newspapers — and that she didn’t see a need to use this law to limit Inside Publications’ distribution in the 43rd Ward.

Two frightening aspects to this story. First is that Chicago is not the first city to enact such legislation.

Chicago’s legislation was modeled after similar legislation passed in Old Westbury Village, NY, Derby County, CN, Rosewell, NM, Patterson Township, PA,
and Statford, VA. The Virginia case was challenged by local campaign workers on
the basis of First Amendment free speech rights and overturned. Chicago’s legislation does not regulate political material, only commercial materials, in
deference to the Virginia case. “There has to be a balance between people’s [First Amendment] rights and the additional cost to the city to clean this up,” said Flores.

A close reading of this law shows that this legislation “shall apply only to commercial advertising matter.” Therefore anything that a politician, preacher, or community activist delivers to your door cannot be considered “litter.”

But what about newsletters and flyers? Are they safe from being considered "litter" if they are not "political" in nature?

Second is the fact that there was no advance notice to concerned residents of the city to come speak to the council in favor or against the measure.

It appears there was little debate or advance notice city-wide of the proposed legislation before the City Council determined that it is illegal to deliver circulars that others may consider litter. One North Side circulation company that wishes to remain anonymous said they were not made aware of the new legislation until one of their clients told them of it. And until recently there seemed to be little enforcement of the law, although two distribution companies told Inside Publications that they had recently been asked to stop delivery of their clients’ menus by ward uperintendents in two Northwest Side wards.

Most of the communities in the Minneapolis metro get some sort of free weekly newspaper that may or may not come in via USPS. Here in the Savage Lands, we have two such publications - one comes in the mail, the other is delivered. I could not imagine a week going by without these two publications as they are vital to the health of our community. Banning publications like this, under any guise, is a step toward silencing the independent media that this country was built on. We can not lose our weekly independents (or even the kooky single page tracts that we get from time to time). They are the only thing standing between us and the corporate media that only wants to tell you the news that they think is "fit to print".

Then again, that is where websites like this may someday soon be important. The internet cat is out of the bag. Government will be hard pressed to shut us down as easily as Chicago has shut down distribution of the little indy newspapers.