Opinion ID: 203074
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Free Availability of Sidewalks

Text: 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.