Opinion ID: 203074
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: We disagree with the district court's conclusion, and that of our dissenting colleague, Judge Lipez, that sidewalk marches and other alternatives to street marches are so lacking as to necessitate an indigency exception to the parade permit fee. We also find no reason to reject the City's insistence that sidewalk parades do not require permits under Augusta's parade ordinance. In a case not unlike the present, the Sixth Circuit similarly concluded that an indigency exemption or waiver was not required for a parade ordinance where, as here, the sidewalks and parks of the city were available without charge for related speech activities. Stonewall, 931 F.2d at 1137. The Sixth Circuit stated, Because we believe the availability of the sidewalks and parks provides a constitutionally acceptable alternative for indigent paraders, we find that the lack of an indigency exception does not render the ordinance constitutionally invalid. Id. We agree with that analysis and find the situation in Augusta analogous. Plaintiffs have cited several circuit and district court cases in support of their contrary position, but these, of course, are not binding upon us and are, moreover, largely distinguishable. [15]
Augusta argues that it provides numerous alternative avenues of communication to persons unable to afford a parade permit, including (a) use of sidewalks, (b) gatherings on state land such as the statehouse steps (Augusta is the state capital), (c) hand-held banners or signs, (d) leafleting, (e) vehicular processions, and (f) mass outdoor gatherings of fewer than 200 people. None of these alternatives requires payment of a fee, and only onea rally on the state house stepsrequires a permit, which is freely obtained. Although the district court acknowledged the alternatives offered by the City, it believed the sidewalksan alternative especially emphasizedwere insufficient because they are too narrow and marginal as compared with main streets, thereby perhaps dampening the number of protestors able to march and the amount of attention attracted. But while a sidewalk march might, for these and other reasons, seem less appealing to some protestors than a street march, it nonetheless provides a prominent route along major thoroughfares for dissemination of a message. As Gregoire stated in his affidavit, several groups have used sidewalk marches to engage in expressive activities, indicating the availability of the sidewalk alternative and its appeal to some persons. Further, as in Stonewall, the availability of gathering places for protests, here including especially the state house steps, with its potential for media coverage, demonstrates the ample range of speech alternatives in the City. While the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to employ every conceivable method of communication at all times and in all places, a restriction on expressive activity may be invalid if the remaining modes of communication are inadequate, Members of City Council of City of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 812, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984) (citation omitted), but an ordinance does not fail for lack of adequate alternatives so long as there are avenues for the general dissemination of a message. Frisby, 487 U.S. at 483-84, 108 S.Ct. 2495 (ban on picketing in public forum upheld where alternatives included entering neighborhoods alone or in groups, going door-to-door, distributing literature through the mails, or contacting residents by telephone). This Circuit has upheld in other contexts alternative means of communication despite diminution in the quantity of speech, a ban on a preferred method of communication, and a reduction in the potential audience. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Beacon Hill Architectural Comm'n, 100 F.3d 175, 192-94 (1st Cir.1996) (holding that a ban on newspaper boxes in historic district met the intermediate scrutiny test in that it was narrowly tailored and newspapers had ample alternative channels of communication in the same area); see also D.H.L. Assocs., Inc. v. O'Gorman, 199 F.3d 50, 59 (1st Cir.1999) (The essence of this question is not `whether a degree of curtailment' of speech exists, but rather `whether the remaining communicative avenues are adequate.') (quoting Nat'l Amusements, 43 F.3d 731, 745 (1st Cir.1995)). In upholding a ban on newspaper boxes in the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, we concluded, The First Amendment does not guarantee a right to the most cost-effective means of distribution or the rent-free use of public property. Globe Newspaper Co., 100 F.3d at 193. The plaintiffs have access to numerous speech alternatives, making a fee waiver to march in the streets unnecessary. Before ending the inquiry, however, we address the district court's reference to the possibility that sidewalks might themselves be subject to a parade permit requirement.
The district court's conclusion that sidewalk marches at least arguably may be subject to permitting (and thus subject to attendant fees) is not unreasonable based simply on the language of the ordinance, but it contradicts the overwhelming evidence in the record that Augusta does not interpret, and has not interpreted, its own parade ordinance in this manner. Gregoire testified in his March 2004 affidavit that sidewalk marches are free and require no permit. In his 2005 supplemental affidavit, he said he had informed Sullivan of that fact in anticipation of the planned March 2004 protest and offered to assist his group with a free sidewalk march prior to the start of the instant litigation. Though certain other of Gregoire's proffers of limiting constructions regarding other provisions of the parade ordinance, supra, came too late or were too vague to be considered authoritative interpretations, his interpretation of the sidewalk marches is one apparently followed by the City from before the litigation. Gregoire's supplemental affidavit in 2005 listed seven permit-fee and fee-free sidewalk marches which had taken place in the previous year, indicating a well-established practice of allowing sidewalk marches without requiring a permit or a fee. We accordingly disagree with the district court's suggestion that sidewalk marches might be excluded as genuine alternatives for persons unable to afford a permit to march on city streets. It is obviously not simple to select out those people and causes whose indigency is such as to warrant giving them, as it were, a free pass. Such provisions for indigency exceptions do exist in the ordinances of some cities, e.g., Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. Whether a particular city, like Augusta, wishes to enact and deal with the administration of such an exception is up to it and its government. Our conclusion is simply that there are sufficient alternatives for speech as not to require, constitutionally, that Augusta provide an indigency exception here. In all events, the Supreme Court has addressed the question of parade permit fees in some detail in Forsyth. It has not suggested that an indigency exception is constitutionally required. If one is to be created under the aegis of the First Amendment, surely that is for the Supreme Court to decide in the first instance. There is a vast number of areas in which a lack of funds may disadvantage an individual, and a constitutional determination that in civil matters an indigent need not pay costs ordinarily imposed on others is a matter to be approached with some caution. e. Abstention and Saving Constructions The district court observed that it did not take lightly its conclusion that the ordinances at issue here are unconstitutional. It dismissed the possibility of abstention or certification to the state court, however, because the resolution is not fairly subject to an interpretation which will render unnecessary or substantially modify the federal constitutional question. Bd. of Airport Comm'rs v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569, 575-76, 107 S.Ct. 2568, 96 L.Ed.2d 500 (1987). A district court's abstention ruling is reviewed on appeal for abuse of discretion. Sheerbonnet, Ltd. v. American Express Bank, 17 F.3d 46, 48 (2d Cir.1994). The court did not abuse its discretion here in declining to abstain or certify any of the issues to the state court.