The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It is the next to last component that needs to be addressed with respect to the encroachment ordinance used to prohibit persons from congregating on Carbondale's Strip. The city's "nuisance ordinance" - city code 17-1-4, which prohibits students from standing on the Strip during the early morning hours - was originally enacted in 1993. The law has confused and confounded many of its opponents. The law was designed to prevent establishments from being blocked by persons simply standing or clogging the sidewalks near the location.
Protesters and/or picketers, for example, must continually move in order not to obstruct access to or from a particular establishment. For this reason, picketers walk up and down the sidewalks. In some cases involving similar laws, such as those with respect to protesting outside of abortion clinics, protesters are relegated to a particular area, so as not to obstruct access to buildings.
Those guidelines have repeatedly been challenged in the courts, including the Supreme Court, to gage whether such guidelines are in violation of the Constitution. Carbondale's encroachment law, only recently enforced in response to the 2000 Halloween riots on the Strip, comes dangerously close to violating the civil liberties and constitutional rights of pedestrians on the Strip.
The right to peaceably assemble should not be infringed, unless individuals are engaging in some form of disorderly conduct or are creating a public nuisance. One person eating a La Bambas burrito on the Strip does not fall into that category. The riots of Halloween past do fall within that category. The police are well within their legal authority as officers of the law to arrest an individual who is destroying private property, or is intoxicated and engaging in rowdy or violent behavior. Public indecency or other blatant and lewd acts are also reasonable grounds for arrests.
Carbondale police did properly arrest rioters during the 2000 Halloween incident. The SIUC police reported a total of 29 arrests - 14 of which were identified as SIUC students - in connection with the riots. But laws are only as effective as to their legitimacy. What Carbondale needs and deserves is a clearly worded and detailed revision of the existing ordinance, specifically stating who and what is in violation of the law. To allow such a broad interpretation of such a narrowly defined law is to allow the seeds of a police state to be planted in our community.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
