Opinion ID: 164773
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: UARC's As-Applied Challenge

Text: 65 Even apart from its facial challenge to Section 3.50, UARC contends that the City violated its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by unreasonably delaying a decision on its permit application. Specifically, UARC contends that the roughly 240-day period from March 9, 2001, when it filed its application, to November 15, 2001, when the application was denied, was unconstitutionally protracted, and made it more difficult for UARC to adequately orchestrate their protests and demonstrations. Appellant's Br. 19. UARC suggests that a constitutionally reasonable brief period is less than 150 days and can be as long as 10 days. Id. at 21. 66 We do not agree. Planning for the Winter Olympics was a mammoth undertaking, made all the more difficult by the security concerns in the wake of September 11. It was not possible to determine where any one group could demonstrate until the official Olympic events were located, security needs assessed, and competing applications taken into consideration. As of October 22, 2001, when UARC filed this lawsuit, the City had not yet finished work on SLOC's Large-Scale Special Event Permit, which had priority. As the City events coordinator wrote to UARC on October 15, 2001: 67 The City is in the process of preparing the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee's (SLOC) Large-Scale Special Event permit for the 2002 Olympics. The permit will determine which locations, if any, within the Olympic Square that the City can reserve for demonstrations. Until that determination is made, the City cannot deny or approve your client's applications because the UARC's requested protest areas may or may not be within the approved demonstration locations. 68 [Letter from S. McDonough to B. Barnard (Oct. 15, 2001), App. 44.] Once SLOC's large-scale permit was issued, the City acted promptly to deny UARC's original application and to propose acceptable alternative locales for its planned demonstrations. In light of the extraordinary logistical, security, and other considerations involved in hosting the games, we agree with the district court that the City's delay in acting on UARC's request was reasonable. Op. 9. 69 The precedents cited by UARC all involve situations where constitutionally protected speech was delayed by the slow processing of the permit applications. See Appellant's Br. 15-22. As noted in the previous section, different constitutional considerations apply to activities planned in advance. UARC filed its permit application some eleven months before its demonstrations were to take place. It may be convenient for applicants to have nearly a year to orchestrate their protests and demonstrations, id. at 19, but they have no constitutional right to demand that city officials make decisions affecting countless other people so long before interrelated decisions have been made. It was reasonable for the City to work out arrangements for the location and timing of Olympic venues, along with attendant security and public health and safety concerns, and then to turn its attention to applications for demonstration permits. The City acted on UARC's permit roughly two and a half months before the Olympics began. We consider that more than adequate, under the circumstances, to satisfy the demands of the First Amendment. 7 70 We are more troubled by the fact that UARC did not receive final word on its modified application until February 4, 2002 — four days before the Winter Olympics (and UARC's planned demonstrations) were to begin. But in district court, UARC specifically limited its constitutional challenge to the delay from March 9 to November 15. Op. 5. Moreover, the record contains no information regarding the process between November 15 and April 2, other than the final result. Thus, we have no basis for opining on whether the time it took the City to give final approval to the four demonstration sites on February 4 was reasonable or constitutional.