STRAWBERRY FIELDS NOT FOREVER AS FANS PROTEST A CURFEW

The city calls the whole thing a simple matter of Parks Department policy.
But for a core constituency of fans, the memorial to John Lennon on Sunday
night will be nothing less than the defining moment of Michael R.
Bloomberg's mayoralty.

Quite simply, they want to know, where does he stand: with Giuliani or with
Lennon?

"It's a bellwether for the next four years of where Bloomberg and the city
stand," said Thomas K. Leighton, a co-founder of the John Lennon Memorial
Committee, which held a news conference yesterday in Strawberry Fields, the
site of the observance, near the 72nd Street entrance of Central Park.

The group urged Mr. Bloomberg to restore the vigils commemorating Lennon's
death to their original status as all-night events.

The annual Dec. 8 vigils, in which hundreds mark the date that Lennon was
killed in 1980, had once been held without curfews. Mayor Rudolph W.
Giuliani's administration ordered them to end by 1 a.m., the regular curfew
for the park.

Before the news conference began, the Lennon supporters had gotten wind
that the curfew would stand, but they made last-minute pleas to the mayor
to lift it. Mr. Leighton, who ran for governor last month as the Marijuana
Reform Party candidate, said he feared that Mayor Bloomberg was continuing
what he called Mr. Giuliani's "moral crusade."

"We've been waiting for eight years for a new day in this city," Mr.
Leighton said. "Giuliani's ban killed the spirit of this vigil. But when
Mike Bloomberg won, we said, 'Cool, he's been a Democrat and he smoked pot.
He's all right.' "

Also at the news conference was the civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel,
who took the microphone in front of a handful of television cameras and
gave an out-of-tune paraphrase of some Lennon lyrics.

"All we are saying," he warbled, "is give freedom a chance."

Mr. Siegel called called the curfew "classical government interference and
repression by an authoritarian government, which is the antithesis of the
Lennon legacy."

Mr. Siegel added that, unlike John Lennon and his fans, "Rudy Giuliani is
not a free spirit. The question is, is Mike Bloomberg a free spirit?"

A spokeswoman for the Parks Department, Megan Sheekey, said the very
purpose of the curfew is to give peace a chance, by ensuring park safety.
"Lennon fans or not, we can only accommodate them until 1 a.m., when the
park closes," she said, adding, "If we change the rule, then we'd have to
do so for everyone."

A spokesmen for Mayor Bloomberg declined to comment, and Mr. Giuliani's
spokeswoman did not return calls.