Legionnaire sues Kentucky town over handbill ban

By The Associated Press

07.01.02

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An American Legion post commander who wanted to promote bingo at his Legion hall in Catlettsburg, Ky., is suing the city over an ordinance against handbills on parked cars.

"We advertised by the old Tom Paine method of pamphleteering," said Leonard F. Jobe, invoking a firebrand of the American Revolution.

Jobe, 66, found himself in court after defying a police warning not to leave handbills on windshields of parked cars.

A judge suspended a $500 fine, but Jobe decided to press the issue. He went to the American Civil Liberties Union, which took his case. The lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court in Ashland.

"We believe it's a classic free-speech case," said David A. Friedman, general counsel of the ACLU of Kentucky.

"It's a democratizing principle. There's a real concern that in our culture today, only the rich get to be heard," Friedman said in a telephone interview from Louisville.

"One of the great principles undergirding freedom of speech is not only freedom to speak but the freedom to do it in a manner most efficient, effective and least costly. That way, people who can't afford the expensive means of communication can still be heard. ... Leafleting is a cheap and efficient way to do it," Friedman said.

The ordinance, which Mayor Roger Hensley said has been on the books for years, says no "handbill, sign, poster, advertisement or notice of any kind whatsoever" can be placed on a vehicle without the vehicle owner's written consent.

Hensley said Jobe was asked to stop posting handbills because "99.9 percent of the fliers he was putting on windshields ended up in the street, which was causing a litter problem."

"He basically told the chief of police he was going to do what he wanted to do. That's when we thought, well, we're going to show him we're going to enforce the ordinance," Hensley said.

Other sections of the ordinance ban sandwich-board advertising or sidewalk barkers. Friedman said those probably are unconstitutional as well.

Jobe, commander of Legion Post 224, said he had no qualms about going to the ACLU, notwithstanding its opposition to a constitutional amendment against flag desecration — something the American Legion has sought for many years.

"I don't see any connection between the flag desecration (matter) and the situation up here," he said.

Friedman agreed. "We defend speech regardless of the speaker and always have," he said. "The identity of the speaker is irrelevant in our analysis."