When citizens were gathering signatures for the Natacha Seijas Recall, Publix called the police on them. Publix recently had Joyce Tarnow, of the Hometown Democracy Petition drive arrested in Pomano. She was peacefully trying to gather signatures in front of their store according to an article in the St. Pete Times: Publix uses law to boot gadfly.
Here is the problem. The public places of the present day are our malls and strip malls which are privately owned. Does private property rights trump free speech rights?
According to the article:
"Several years ago in Bay County, a gadfly named Kevin Wood, was gathering signatures to run for public office at the Panama City Mall when he was arrested for trespassing.
A Bay County Circuit Judge ruled that a shopping mall is a "quasi-public" place, where petition signatures can be collected. Marshall (of the ACLU) wants to use that judge's opinion to go after the new law."
Randall Marshall does not want to challenge the current law in the Tarnow case because she was at a stand-alone store not a strip mall.
But hey, if you have a choice between Whole Foods, Winne Dixie and Publix, maybe you should give it a second thought.
13 comments:
BOYCOTT PUBLIX!!!
Remember when Publix was actually closed on Sunday to allow for employees to spend time with their families? Every time I return to Miami to visit family I'm amazed at the high prices and crappy service. I do enjoy weighing myself at the scales Publix has at the entrance to the stores.
So, shopping centers and other private property owners have no right to keep unwanted visitors from hassling customers? I suppose property rights are now something everyone should vote on, too. I wonder how you would feel if the electorate got to vote on your right to free speech?
This is still America. Nobody has a free speech right to use somebody else's property. Ask permission first, and if the manager/owner doesn't want you or your petition, then move on. Find a street corner -- they are open to the public. I've collected petitions for years at Publixes and other strip malls by using common courtesy. Some of these circulators need a lesson in courtesy (and a big lesson on economics, judging from some of their fruit-loop ideas).
Ahh... what a brilliant idea. Force everybody into using cars because of profit-making, environmentally destructive suburban land use polices around the nation and then make it impossible to reverse those decisions by claiming "property rights." Imagine that, people are more important than fruit-loop economic ideology. Hello can anyone remember Lockner v. NY, radical free market economic idelogy is NOT written into the constitution!!! Are we living in 1927 or 2007?
According to the article:
you didn't read to the end of the post:
"Several years ago in Bay County, a gadfly named Kevin Wood, was gathering signatures to run for public office at the Panama City Mall when he was arrested for trespassing.
A Bay County Circuit Judge ruled that a shopping mall is a "quasi-public" place, where petition signatures can be collected. Marshall (of the ACLU) wants to use that judge's opinion to go after the new law."
You property rights people are pains in the butt sometimes....what are you all redlanders?
Soon Publix will have a monopoly in South Florida, and they'll do whatever they like.
I love my Publix! There’s Bill the butcher (ask him about the lamb), Ernie, the singing fish monger, the new recipe lady, and the produce people. They’ll give you the low down on the strawberries, what’s local, what’s really in season. We had a major adventure with Brussel sprouts one Thanksgiving. No, you can’t get kaffir leaves (can anyone tell me where you can get kaffir leaves?) but there’s lemongrass in a tube.
But if you are looking for the Agora of antiquity in the parking lot, rather than the aisles, you will be disappointed. Socrates bought his own fish and probably knew the crowd by name (not that that helped in the long run). Solon couldn’t have restructured the Athenian economy and political system without conversations – that preceded rather than began with a policy solution. Also, without refrigeration, you had to buy fresh, daily and early. No shopping over a 24 hour cycle. Everyone was there to meet and greet. The lack of public space where people “hang out” and interact at the same time does have an undermining effect on community/democracy.
You have noted in this blog there is no public green space – never designed/planned into the city. A new downtown development bills itself as a “gated community on the river.” Shouldn’t that be our river? Wasn’t it once sacred?
Public commercial spaces (Sunset mall even Falls) blare music, Starbucks’ patrons bring their own computers (though cafes in other places other times have been discussion centers). Where else do people come together? Religious communities, schools? Who sets their agendas?
There is a beautiful green spot outside my Publix, under the poincianas – you can hang out there. It’s actually a green park! And, in spite of polling people at the door, Publix didn’t get the approval to tear down and rebuild twice as large. (Maybe they are opposed to development oversight for that very reason?) I was told by one vendor/ stocker ruefully “you would have had room for every kind of vinegar if the plans had gone through.” (Yes I want the fig and tarragon vinegar). But would it have been as cozy?
There have also been people petitioning for state funded stem cell research, not mention girl scout cookies and give away kittens. Have you tried Monza?
Of course in order to hang out you need to park somewhere.
S
Glad you have a friendly Publix, The point S is not:
There is a beautiful green spot outside my Publix, under the poincianas – you can hang out there. It’s actually a green park!
This is not about green space...it is about getting
close enough to people to interact with them. Where can you go in Kendall to do this, where can you go in Palmetto Bay. A publix brings in a multitude of people. A park brings in a few. If you need signatures you don't want the park. You need a public space....
My point is you should actually have a history of interacting before you ask for the signatures. There needs to be an underlying sense of community.
S
If Wal-Mart is a category killer, the wastelands of South Florida, where town centers and community spirit exists in isolated pockets if at all, are democracy-killers. People are locked and loaded in cars and behind gated subdivisions.
Who knows neighbors?
The recent actions by Miami-Dade county commissioners and the Florida legislature, to make it ever more difficult to gather signatures for citizens to petition their own government is just another sign of a withering democracy.
It was perfectly clear, that the intent of the legislature to allow property owners to keep signature gatherers off their property was meant to specifically deter individual store managers who might have had the lattitude from corporate headquarters to allow signature gathering on their premises.
Now, what you have, is a few well-paid lobbyists in Tallahassee putting the squeeze on Publix and other big box tenants, "suggesting" a uniform policy to keep people out of parking lots and off sidewalks as a corporate "good".
That's the way it was planned, to keep Florida Hometown Democracy off the ballot in 2008. You stop a wound by cutting off the circulation--and for corporate interests, participatory democracy is a wound to be fixed at all costs.
I WILL NOT SHOP AT PUBLIX.
I have a right to shop without being distrubed by some gadfly wanting me to sign a petition for some cause i don't agree with, and if the law weren't one the books i'd be called the cops for you trouble makers distrubing the peace. Shopping centers aren't public places, look up the definition of public place. There is a reason the girl scouts ask permission before they sell cookies outside stores.
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