GUAVAWEEN'S FEARSOME POLICE

Ybor City streets during Guavaween may have been full of vampires and
monsters, but the most fearsome figures at the festival were Tampa city
police. Their bag of tricks included asserting raw power and stomping on
freedom of speech.

How else to describe the arrest of Tampa resident Anthony Lorenzo, who was
taken into custody for passing out handbills on 7th Avenue in violation of
a city ordinance? Lorenzo, 27, was arrested, and a videotape of the arrest
made by him and a fellow activist was confiscated. Both actions indicate a
lack of respect for individual rights. The Tampa Police Department and the
Tampa City Council need a refresher course on the First Amendment.

During the festival, Lorenzo and other supporters of the Florida Cannabis
Action Network were passing out leaflets next to a 6-foot-high papier-mache
replica of a marijuana joint. The fliers read: "Vote Libertarian to end the
drug war," and Lorenzo was dressed in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the
letters "DEA." He estimates they passed out about 3,000 fliers. And his
actions were entirely peaceable.

Few activities are more highly protected by the Constitution than the
distribution of leaflets on a political subject on a public street. But two
years ago, the Tampa City Council declared the historic blocks of Ybor City
"free speech-free" zones. Council members passed an ordinance prohibiting
the distribution of handbills on 7th or 8th avenues. Apparently, the
Council was pressured by the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce to eradicate the
litter problem that resulted from businesses that pass out flyers trying to
tempt patrons inside. But rather than step up efforts at litter control,
the Council found it much easier to ban the distribution of written speech.

The Tampa City Attorney refused to comment, but a spokesperson for the
Chamber said the ordinance is constitutional because there are alternative
means of communication -- other streets where leafleting is permitted. But
the bulk of pedestrian traffic is on those historic blocks. There is no
reasonable substitute anywhere else in Ybor City.

In the 1939 case of Schneider vs. New Jersey, the U.S. Supreme Court
stated: "We are of the opinion that the purpose to keep the streets clean
and of good appearance is insufficient to justify an ordinance which
prohibits a person rightfully on a public street from handing literature to
one willing to receive it. Any burden imposed upon the city authorities in
cleaning and caring for the streets as an indirect consequence of such
distribution results from the constitutional protection of the freedom of
speech and press."

Could that be any clearer?