The Contra Costa Times reports:
[T]he Berkeley City Council ... voted 8-1 Tuesday night to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."
In addition, the council voted to explore enforcing its law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against the Marines because of the military's don't ask, don't tell policy. And it officially encouraged the women's peace group Code Pink to impede the work of the Marines in the city by protesting in front of the station.
In a separate item, the council voted 8-1 to give Code Pink a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station once a week for six months and a free sound permit for protesting once a week from noon to 4 p.m....
"I believe in the Code Pink cause. The Marines don't belong here, they shouldn't have come here, and they should leave," said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates after votes were cast....
Oddly enough, in pretty much every city I've lived, I've been "uninvited" by the city council or any other organization representing the city. Nor would I have felt I was doing something rude or otherwise bad if the city council has announced that I was "unwelcome."
On the other hand, being labeled as "intruder" would have troubled me, because it seems to assert some sort of property rights on the city council's part. If a host declares me an intruder in his house, or a business on its property, I would have to leave. But here the Marines, I take it, are on private property that the commercial landlord has voluntarily rented to them. A little arrogant for the city council to decide who's an intruder as to all the private property in the city, no? (The same would go as to government-owned parcels of property or easements that are by law open to the whole public, such as roads or sidewalks.) Especially when it's quite likely that many Berkeleyans, even if only a minority, take a different view, and are entitled to themselves invite the Marines onto the property if they so choose?
Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Community Morality and Zoning Restrictions on Adult Businesses and Military Recruiting Stations:
- Conspiracy Theory -- Pass It On:
- You're Only Supposed to Go to a City with the City Council's Invitation? Who Knew?
IANAL so I ask those who are: If a pro-life group were to ask for a similar once-a-week parking spot/sound permit deal in front of an abortion clinic and were turned down, would they have any grounds for suing the city for viewpoint discrimination?
If two people are having a conversation at table in a restaurant, and a stranger e interrupts, the intruder might say "Pardon the intrusion, but..." Property has nothing to do with it. It's more a question of whether the person who injects himself into a situation was welcome or invited.
From the council's standpoint, the choice of word was quite good. They are mistaken not in using the wrong word, but in thinking that they have a right to decide who is welcome in their town and who is not welcome.
No more arrogant than zoning laws, which accomplish the exact same thing on a daily basis in communities across the coutry.
To law geeks, there is no more glamorous corner of the blogosphere!
I'd object on the grounds that such a resolution is not within the limited jurisdiction of the federal government described in Article I. Let the state legislature deal with it.
Anyone know if he's related to Steve?
For fun, they could just drive a tank around city hall during meetings. Following someone around with a helicopter would also be amusing.
*Do we still have them?
Of course the use of the word "intruder" may have property rights connotations. All the lawyers here (and especially law students) know exactly what Professor Volokh means, and he is correct.
Maybe the Marines should seek seeming injunctive relief via a seeming lawuit, or file a seeming complaint with the Federal Commission for Seeming Regulation of Symbolic Gestures.
Ok, then let's call Dean Koh at Yale and see if they will sue the city on behalf of the Marines who have to man this post.
"City Council Chambers? Not any more. This is the new US Military Recruiting Center for this area. You're not welcome here any more."
Some intruders intrude onto private property. But there are other ways to intrude. Just because a word has a legal usage, that does not mean that that usage is exclusive. And given what Berkeley has tried to do here, I wouldn't say that knowledge of the law was foremost on their minds.
Do they really ban men, or is anyone welcome to join and help promote the cause of peace between women?
No, no, no--let's all go to Berkely, uninvited. Too bad there's not a federal CCW reciprocity, but maybe we could take a tip from the college empty-holster folks so we could let the City Council see how happy we are to be there.
They don't call it the People's Republic of Berkeley for nothing!
Wait, you say they don't love these illegal immigrants?
How does their fire department function without hoses? And have they removed the rear-ends of municpal buses?
More broadly, I'm disturbed by the notion of a legislative body passing a motion that does something other than legislate. This motion does not forbid or compel any particular action, and therefore implies an official policy of passing laws that explicitly do nothing. I don't even know where to start describing what's wrong with that.
It's kind of like having an annoying aunt who keeps calling you collect to describe in excruciating detail everything her favorite cat did that day, and you're an on-call emergency worker with a legal obligation to answer the phone.
This is worth a post of its own. What did you do that made them want to "uninvite" you (unfairly or fairly)?
Now, my question is, how did that city approve doing any sort of search for illegal drugs??
In 1987, by special ordinance, Berkeley declared that all seats of city buses were designated to be "front seats".
And I wish that I were joking.
And the city ordered fire hoses made out of hemp.
Hoosier: Wouldn't specie profiling be excluding some unit of currency because it seemed likely to be unreliable?
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) released the following statement in response to the decision by the City Council of Berkeley, California to evict the U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Station from the city.
“This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families. The First Amendment gives the City of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money. If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer funded handouts. I am currently drafting legislation to ensure that American taxpayers aren’t forced to pay for this insult by rescinding all of the earmarks for Berkeley in the Omnibus Appropriations bill, and to transfer the funds to the Marine Corps.”
Are there many such "nuclear free zones" around the country? Are they all, as I would imagine, co-located where there are the greatest concentrations of "progressives"?
[A little more off-point, but not too much so I think - heard the manager of a Trader Joe's tell a customer yesterday that the reason they no longer stocked corn flakes was that they had taken a pledge to sell no genetically modified foods and TJ's has so far been unable to find a supplier of certified non-GMF corn. This particular store is several miles away from Garrett Park, but I think still close enough to combine the protective effects of a "nuclear-free zone" and a GMF-free zone.]
Sorry, my humor/common sense meter was off. We have had a person or two truly "uninvited" or "dis-invited" from speaking to our school board and city council after making pests of themselves.