MBTA TAKES A HIT IN COURT ON MARIJUANA ADS CASE

The MBTA violated the free speech rights of a group that wants to
legalize marijuana by refusing to display its advertisements
throughout the transit system, a federal appeals court has ruled.

In a decision that came after the T waged an $800,000 court battle,
the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals found officials improperly rejected
the ads because they disapproved of their message.

"As a taxpayer I would be outraged by . . . what they spent on a
losing case," said Joe White, executive director of Change the
Climate, the group that wanted to run the ads.

T officials argued yesterday that the money was well spent because the
agency prevailed in key portions of the ruling that upheld the
agency's policies for reviewing and rejecting some advertisements.

"It's expensive . . . but we are preserving our right to control
advertisements on the MBTA system in a way that's respectful to the
people who use that system," MBTA General Manager Michael Mulhern
said yesterday.

The court ruling, while slapping the T for its refusal to run the
Change the Climate ads, said the agency properly rejected ads from
other groups deemed offensive to Christians.

In the case of Change the Climate, which wanted to run a series of
three advertisements, the court found the T's refusal was unreasonable
and amounted to "viewpoint discrimination."

"This suspicion of viewpoint discrimination is deepened by the fact
that the MBTA has run a number of ads promoting alcohol that are
clearly more appealing to juveniles than the ads here," the court
said.