Appeals panel upholds government crackdown on illegal radio station

By The Associated Press

07.31.01

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CINCINNATI — A federal appeals court panel has upheld the government's shutdown of a Cleveland radio station that regulators said had been broadcasting illegally without a license.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday rejected Jerry Szoka's challenge of a court order that the Federal Communications Commission obtained to shut down his station last year. A three-judge appeals panel agreed with a lower court ruling.

Szoka, an electrician and former technical adviser at a college radio station, began operating his low-power FM station in September 1995. He called the station "Grid Radio," named for a Cleveland nightclub that Szoka partially owned.

He said his broadcasts weren't interfering with other stations because he chose a frequency — 96.9 FM — that was not then being used in the Cleveland market.

Grid Radio billed itself as a nonprofit, community-oriented and all-volunteer station. It played dance music and offered information and entertainment programming intended to serve the gay, lesbian and arts communities in the Cleveland area.

The FCC received a complaint in 1996 about Szoka's unauthorized broadcasting. After Szoka ignored two letters from federal regulators directing him to stop the unlicensed broadcasting, the government went to court to obtain the order shutting down his station.

Szoka said he did not apply for a broadcasting license. He argued that FCC regulations prohibiting the licensing of noncommercial, low-power radio stations were unfair and violated the First Amendment. (The FCC has since approved a plan to license low-power, noncommercial stations.)

Federal judges said, however, that even if Szoka was correct that the FCC regulations were unconstitutional, he had no right to broadcast without a license.

Szoka still has another case pending before the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., where he is challenging the FCC's shutdown order and the agency's refusal to license low-power, noncommercial FM stations.

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