ACLU of Virginia warned officials not to place plaza in new multi-use development off limits to expression protected by the First Amendment
The Virginia Beach Development Authority announced Friday that it will drop plans to prevent demonstrators from using a large plaza incorporated into the new Town Center development.
The ACLU of Virginia had warned city officials that the plaza is a traditional public forum in which free speech and assembly are protected by the First Amendment.
The civil liberties group also offered to provide legal assistance to several citizens groups that hoped to use the new plaza for demonstrations. One group, the Citizens Action Coalition, planned to gather at the plaza this weekend to protest the proposed restrictions by the Development Authority.
Under the regulations proposed by the Development Authority, protestors and pamphleteers using the plaza would be charged with trespassing, leading to fines of $2,500 and up to one year in jail.
“Virginia Beach included the plaza in the new development precisely for the purpose of creating a true town center for the city,” said ACLU of Virginia executive director Kent Willis. “The plaza is a publicly-owned open space accessible to the public and intended fo public use--it is the epitome of a public forum.”
According to city reports, the new Town Center development is intended to give Virginia Beach an urban focal point with hotels, condominiums, apartments, retail businesses and a performing arts theater gathered around an open plaza. A memo from the city attorney set out a legal argument for how the city could allow the public unlimited access to the plaza but still prohibit protests and other forms of expression protected by the First Amendment.
The ACLU countered with a list of legal precedents supporting the contention that spaces like the Town Center plaza are public forums.
Yesterday city manager James K. Spore sent a letter to Virginia Beach City Council members asking them to tell the Development Authority to allow the plaza to be used as a public forum. Spore originally supported the restrictions on the plaza but later changed his view.
Contact: Kent Willis, Executive Director, ACLU of Virginia, 804-644-8022
