leafleting

[Guest guest]

Gata wrote:

 

" These posts both have good information and tips. For tabling and

leafletting at shopping malls, I was given the following information

by a seasoned leafletter who told me to always carry the following info.:

The Pruneyard, California Supreme Court decision (1980), says

that tabling and leafletting at shopping malls is permitted. "

 

Thanks to Gata for bringing up an important point. The U.S. Supreme Court

did hold in PRUNEYARD SHOPPING CENTER v. ROBINS (1980) 447 U.S. 74, that

state constitutional provisions, as construed to permit individuals

reasonably to exercise free speech and petition rights on the property of a

privately owned shopping center to which the public is invited, do not

violate the shopping center owner's property rights under the Fifth and

Fourteenth Amendments or his free speech rights under the First and

Fourteenth Amendments. This decision was decided upon the ground, among

others, that a state's constitution can give 1st Amendment rights in excess

of those granted by the U.S. constitution. California, through it's

constitution and state Supreme Court decisions, did just that.

 

However, in Savage v. Trammell Crow Co. (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 1562 , 273

Cal.Rptr. 302, among other cases, the California Court of Appeals, explained

the limits of a demonstrator's or leafleter's right to use a shopping center

as a public forum. The Savage court quoted the Pruneyard decision: " By no

means do we imply that those who wish to disseminate ideas have free rein. "

(23 Cal.3d at p. 910.) Rather, the appellate court stated, property owners

may regulate the time, place and manner of such activity. (Id.)

 

The appellate court noted that, although a demonstrator's or leafleter's

right to engage in expressive activity at shopping centers is found solely

in the broader protection provided by California's Constitution, a shopping

center's power to impose time, place, and manner restrictions on such

activity is nonetheless measured by federal constitutional standards. In

essence, the appellate court held, Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center,

supra, 23 Cal.3d 899 , in affirming a shopping center owner's right to

impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on petitioning

activity, recognized in the owner important rights of substance; those

rights are identified as freedom from disruption of normal business

operations and freedom from interference with customer convenience.

 

In other words, those who demonstrate or leaflet on a shopping center's

private property can be reasonably asked to register with the center and

carry out their activities in places, at times, and in a manner prescribed

by the center.

 

Any abuse of it's reasonable right to set time, place and manner limitations

by a shopping center is, of course, actionable at law.