The Press-Enterprise reports on this new ordinance:
The Church of Scientology’s concerns about protesters outside their Gilman Hot Springs base led Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone to seek and gain approval Tuesday for county restrictions on picketing in residential neighborhoods….
[T]he ordinance … forbids demonstrators from coming within 300 feet of a home they are targeting in unincorporated Riverside County….
Stone said that protesters can still present their message, but at a safe distance that prevents violence.
“We need to do what we can locally to allow people to have freedom of expression but not provide a bully pulpit for hate,” he said….
Stone described mask-wearing protesters who have appeared in recent months outside Scientology’s Golden Era campus off Gilman Springs Road as “hatemongers.” …
While the Supreme Court has upheld ordinances that ban all picketing in front of a residence, the Court has struck down an injunction banning picketing within 300 feet of a residence, and other courts have (in my view quite correctly) concluded that a 300-foot zone is too wide. Here’s an excerpt from Klein v. San Diego County, 463 F.3d 1029 (9th Cir. 2006), which rejected a facial challenge to such an ordinance, but strongly suggested that such ordinances will be unconstitutional in many applications:
[In] Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753, … the Court considered an injunction that prohibited picketing within 300 feet of the residence of abortion clinic employees. The Court noted, again, that the house is the