ACLU of Santa Cruz County, CA

The Santa Cruz Chapter of the ACLU has raised objections to a recent ordinance passed by the Santa Cruz City Council which we believe is an unwarranted prohibition on free speech and assembly rights in public places. The ordinance in question makes it illegal for anyone to be on any of the more than 20 downtown surface public parking lots for any purpose other than parking a vehicle (and also makes it illegal to spend any more than 15 minutes for such parking).

The ACLU recognizes that public parking lots are not typical free speech forums, as, for example, public sidewalks and parks are. Because of this, we fully recognize that the Council has an obligation to balance public safety concerns with free speech interests in how they regulate the use of parking lots. For example, we did not oppose previous action by the Council to enact a similar limitation on public access to the City’s enclosed parking garages because the City staff had produced evidence that loiterers in City parking garages were creating a safety problem for those using the garages, including city employees working in the garages.

But in this case, the City Council (with councilmember Rotkin dissenting) had applied similar restrictions to virtually all of the City’s surface parking lots and they did this without providing any persuasive evidence of actual safety problems. Some anecdotes were offered concerning downtown employees who felt uncomfortable leaving their cars in such lots, but no attempt was made to gather reports of crimes, statistical information on the number of complaints, etc. Consequently, Don Zimmerman, head of our Legal Committee, expressed the Santa Cruz ACLU Board’s opposition to the ordinance while it was being considered. The Council passed it anyway, in effect completely rejecting the legitimacy of applying a balancing test.

We continue to believe that the new law has created an unnecessary and unjustified restriction on constitutionally guaranteed free speech and assembly rights, opportunities for which should not be limited unless the government can offer a compelling reason to do so. We feel that the Council has not met this burden and should reconsider its action.