Opinion ID: 203074
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Meet and Attempt to Agree Provision

Text: The plaintiffs argued below that the parade ordinance's requirement that [w]ithin ten (10) days of applying for the permit, as a condition to its issuance, the applicant must meet with the Police Chief to discuss and attempt to agree on the details of the route and other logistics, is not narrowly tailored to serve significant governmental interests because (1) forcing an in-person meeting with the police chief within ten days from applying for the permit creates an unreasonable time barrier that burdens unnecessarily a citizen seeking to promote a spontaneous or prompt demonstration in response to a time-sensitive issue or event; and (2) the details of the route may be an important part of the applicant's expressive activity and thus the applicant should not be required to negotiate with the government about the manner of expression. Plaintiffs also argued that applicants who are uncomfortable dealing directly with the police chief, such as an applicant wishing to protest alleged civil rights abuses by police, might be discouraged from applying for a parade ordinance altogether. The district court concluded that the in-person meeting requirement chills substantially more speech than is necessary to achieve the end [of promoting public health and safety]. The City argues on appeal that while the district court agreed there is a significant governmental interest in gathering information on parade logistics, it erroneously applied a least intrusive means analysis consistent with strict scrutiny, rather than the more relaxed narrow tailoring analysis appropriate in intermediate scrutiny. Ward, 491 U.S. at 797-98, 109 S.Ct. 2746. The City further contends that the most effective way to arrange a parade route with the police department is to do so in person and states that it has a policy of not rigidly adhering to the requirement of a face-to-face meeting if it is not necessary to serve the stated purposes of the ordinance. The plaintiffs reply that there are no guidelines to suggest when such a waiver would be granted and that the supposed policy of not rigidly adhering to the meeting requirement (which the ordinance states is a condition to issuance of the permit) is unsupported by any written criteria, evidence of established practice, or specific precedent. While the question is close, we believe the provision is overbroad in certain respects, especially given its unyielding language (the applicant must meet with the Police Chief and do so as a condition to [the permit's] issuancethe latter seeming to rule out the police department's alleged policy of not always requiring a face-to-face meeting). We agree with the City, however, that meeting face-to-face with the Police Chief is not an unreasonable way in most instances to work out a route, and that this requirement, as a general rule, is constitutionally acceptable, provided provision is made for reasonable exceptions. For one, it would seem necessary to allow for meeting with the Chief's delegate in case the chief is unavailable. For another, it may be unduly burdensome for a parade organizer who lives, or whose work takes him, some distance away from the City, to sit down with the Chief or his delegate. And there is the possibility that some activist leaders may experience the kind of acute discomfort that plaintiffs hypothesize at sitting down with the Chief because of the nature of their cause. All of these concerns, to a greater or lesser degree, suggest that in this age of e-mail, express mail, fax and telephone, requiring, inflexibly, meeting with the Chief in person within the specified ten-day period as a mandatory condition of issuance of the permit burdens substantially more speech than is necessary. Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746. The City can address the problem in various ways. One way, of course, is simply to provide some acceptable alternatives to meeting with the Chief. Another would be to provide that an applicant may, if good cause existed, request an alternative, and the Chief or his delegate should allow the request if reasonable and practicable to do so. To take the above concerns into account is not equivalent to applying the inappropriate least-restrictive means test, see Ward, 491 U.S. at 797-98, 109 S.Ct. 2746, but rather applies the principle that a regulation of this type may not burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's legitimate interests. Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746. Hence, one or more alternatives to a face-to-face meeting with the Chief need to be provided. Lacking such alternative or alternatives, the meeting provision as it currently stands is overbroad.