THE WASHINGTON POST AUGUST 21,1985

New Rules to Curb Lafayette Protests'Visual Blight' Cited

By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer

The National Park Service, arguing that the proliferation of permanent protest displays is causing "visual blight" in Lafayette Park, has announced new regulations that would restrict both the size and the number of protest signs there and prohibit the plywood huts and other structures that have sprung up across the street from the White House.

The regulations, according to the Park Service, are intended to control the manner, but not the content, of protests by demonstrator;s who have settled into the park on a long-term basis and turned its picture-postcard beauty into what many call an eyesore.

"We've obviously had a lot of complaints about conditions in the park," said Sandra Alley, associate regional director of public affairs for the Park Service's national capital region. "We're not trying to curb First Amendment rights, but we are seeking some sort of balance.

Hand-carried signs would be exempted from the new regulations, and protest groups would be allowed to set up temporary speaker's or "soapbox" platforms for rallies in the park.

But other "structures"--the huts, chairs, desks, makeshift toilets, kitchen sinks and other personal items that officials say protesters have brought in or "stored" in the park--would be prohibited.

Under the new regulations, scheduled to take effect in late November after a period for public comment, signs placed or set down in the park must be no larger than four feet in either dimension and no thicker t~an one quarter inch. They may not be elevated more than six feet from the ground at~their highest point and may not be combined with other sigrls to form larger structures.

No protesters may have more than two such signs in the park at any one time, and those signs must be "attended" at ~II times, meaning that: someone must be within three feet of the sign or it will be considered abandoned property.

Park Service officials say they need the tighter restrictions because protesters have begun setting up billboard- like, hand-painted signs along the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the park, obscuring the view of the White House. posing a Safety threat in high winds and generally ruining the park's esthetic quality.

But park protesters and civil libertrians, who have tangled with the Park Service before, raised concerns yesterday thnt the new restrictions could violate constitutional protection of free speech and free expression.

"They`want to try to make Lafayette Park look more pretty in the view of some people," Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU's local office here. "We just don't think that is a very weighty concern to justify the infringement of First Amendment rights."

Though an around-the-clock antinuclear vigil has been going on in the park for more than two years, court decisions have prohibited overnight "sleep-in" protests there. Long-term demonstrations on the sidewalk in front of the White House also have been banned, a move that has made Lafayette Park all the more attractive to protesters.

"I came here June 27 and I just haven't gotten home yet," said Prima Blakus of Portland, Ore., who sat in a chair at the southeast corner of the park yesterday and flashed the peace sign to passing motorists. "Now I've gotten stubborn,I'm waiting for world peace." More than 50 signs--encouraging everything from world peace to, birth control to freedom of religion--were set up in the park yesterday, sharing space with lunching office workers and drawing the attention of tourists. Only two demonstrators, Blakus and Concepcion Picciotto, were in the park with the signs.

Picciotto, an organizer of the anti-nuclear vigil, said she and a companion, William Thomas, built several of the larger protest signs that face the White House. "The more weapons they build, the more signs we have to have to show the people what is happening," she said.

But Park Service officials, in a memorandum accompanying publication of the regulations in yesterday's Federal Register, warn that without the new restrictions the "dumplike atmosphere" and "building boom" in the park could get ~worse. They say they have received requests for permits to establish a library in the park, a landing spot for;l spaceship and facilities to perform an abortion.

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January 1997

In case you're looking for us (White House Peace Vigil - Peace Park anti-nuclear vigil - and friends) our signs have been moved across Lafayette Park to H Street, as has happened every four years since the vigil began in June, 1981.

Meanwhile a dozen large mobile homes rest on the grass of the southern half of Lafayette Park for the construction crews' comfort. Police patrol regularly, in part to make sure no homeless people crawl under the empty trailers in the icy dark of night. The bricks where office workers and tourists usually walk have been torn up, and huge - ugly - three-story bleachers rise in the space where our vigil normally stands, along the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, so the press -- for one afternoon -- may stay warm and dry and near bathrooms while President Clinton has his second inaugural parade. The bathrooms on the north side of the park are locked, though construction workers again (as in past years) have for their use several porta-johns which are locked at night. Fences of every variety are intricately laid out to block demonstrators into the northeast corner of the park during the Big Event.

Ronald Reagan tried to have a second inaugural parade but it was so cold Inauguration Day 1985, the president had to call it off, and the quarter-million-dollar bleachers went unused. We were shivering and dancing in the northeast quadrant of the park, giving credit to God for a good sense of humor.

The vigil began five months after Reagan's first inauguration. At that time, people were allowed to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk. After a campaign by the Washington Times in 1983, new regulations were written banishing the vigil to Lafayette Park. During the wee hours of the morning, when tourists weren't about, police hovered and often arrested the vigilers. Department of Interior lawyers wrote a "camping" regulation which was used to criminalize (see CCNV case, U.S. Supreme Court, 1984) what was formerly protected behavior (see Abney case, U.S. Court of Appeals, 1976).

Since there are private citizens who insist on paying for this desecration of Lafayette Park every four years (via the Inaugural Committee), we're stuck with the bleachers again this year. So I'm writing President Clinton asking him, as I asked President Reagan in 1985, at least to leave the bleachers up for the rest of the winter, for homeless people to get out of the cold, wet, snowy, icy streets. I'm not asking for us -- we will remain at our signs with the minimal amount of protection necessary to survive. We are asking on behalf of the homeless sleeping on the DC streets (in spite of police harassment) ... still, after all these years.

Ellen Thomas
PEACE PARK ANTINUCLEAR VIGIL
PO Box 27217, Washington, DC 20038 USA
202-462-0757
prop1@prop1.org

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