Judge Rejects Great Lawn Protest
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Yesterday’s rejection in federal court of a petition by protesters of the Republican National Convention to use Central Park’s Great Lawn cast a shadow over the organizers of the largest of the planned protests at today’s state court hearing.
The ruling represents the first legal victory needed by the city in its efforts to prevent the Great Lawn from being used for two massive protests on the weekend preceding the convention. Mayor Bloomberg and other city officials have repeatedly expressed their concern that the thousands of people expected at the rally would ruin the recent $18.2 million renovation to the space. The second hearing will be today, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in New York State Supreme Court.
Yesterday’s memorandum, written by U.S. District Judge William Pauley III, rejected a last-ditch attempt by the National Council of Arab Americans and the Act Now to Stop Racism and End War Coalition to force the city to allow an August 28 rally against racial profiling. Organizers expect the rally to attract 75,000 people.
In his memorandum, Judge Pauley said he felt there were plenty of alternative sites for the rally, and he concurred with the city’s concern over the lack of a rain date or means of control ling the number of people on the Great Lawn. The judge took the unusual step of advising the two parties to return to the negotiating table.
“This litigation appears to be the first time that parties engaged in a meaningful way and discussed the proposed assembly on the Great Lawn,” he wrote in the conclusion. “The impediments are not insurmountable.”
Of five applicants to use the Great Lawn, three organizations have found alternative sites and two, Answer and United for Peace and Justice, took the city to court. Yesterday’s ruling may be a portent of things to come in today’s hearing on the UFPJ’s anticipated 250,000-person anti-war march past Madison Square Garden and rally on the Great Lawn targeted for August 29.The group has a permit for the march past the garden but not for the Great Lawn demonstration.
“I think this decision will have some impact on the state court judge,” said a veteran civil rights attorney, Sidney Rosdeitcher, of the law firm Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Warton, & Garrison. “Judge Pauley did consider the right factors.”
The lead attorney for UFPJ, Jeffrey Fogel of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said he was prepared for the government to address the objections raised in Judge Pauley’s memorandum.
To prevail against the city, UFPJ must explain to the court why it did an about-face two weeks ago and rejected the rally site on Chambers and West streets it had accepted previously.
Meanwhile, Answer and the National Council of Arab Americans find themselves without a site. Organizers have steadfastly refused to admit the possibility that they may not get a permit for a legal rally in the park, and even now, when their application has been firmly rejected and with no appeal yet filed, they have made no alternate plans. Indeed, they have hinted they will gather in the park illegally.
“We assume there are going to be hundreds of thousands of people coming here, and a lot are upset with what the city is doing,” said an Answer spokesman, William Massey. “We’re sure there will be protests all over the city, including Central Park.”
Mr. Bloomberg has said in recent weeks that police will be instructed to enforce the law that limits un-permitted park gatherings to less than 20 people and forbids amplified sound.