Mormons purchase portion of Utah public street, create code of conduct

The Associated Press

05.07.99

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	Salt Lake City's Main Street as it looks now, near Mormon Temple.

SALT LAKE CITY — It was billed as something of a public park, and why not? The Mormon church was buying a piece of Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City for an outdoor mall.

The city agreed to sell, but only if the church kept the mall, with its reflecting pool, trees and flowers, open to the public 24 hours a day.

But then the state's predominant church laid down a long list of rules: No smoking, sunbathing, music, bicycling, skateboards, speechmaking, picketing, pamphleteering, cursing, begging and more.

Now the American Civil Liberties Union is crying "unconstitutional," saying the city-approved list of don'ts has no place at a public place. It smacks of Beijing's infamous "Red Square," the Utah chapter of the ACLU told the city in a letter threatening First Amendment legal action.

"Main Street, like all public streets, is and always has been a traditional public forum," wrote state ACLU legal director Stephen Clark, saying that only if it is treated as truly public can litigation be avoided.

Clark called the $8.1 million sale last week of one block of Main Street adjacent to church-owned Temple Square a "curious transaction."

"You've got the city reserving a public easement (on the block) and then agreeing to these unconstitutional restrictions," Clark said in an interview yesterday.

	Artist's conception of how Main Street would look in future.

Among the ACLU's legal options, he said, was to stage an arrest on the pedestrian mall for a violation of a church rule.

Clark said that some on the City Council never intended the two-acre plaza to become an extension of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Temple Square, with all of the square's behavioral restrictions. The council voted for the sale last month — five Mormons in favor and two non-Mormons against.

Construction of the plaza — including a 650-stall underground parking garage for church employees — is scheduled to begin on May 10.

In the deal's most glaring inequity, Clark said, the Mormon church carved for itself and its members an exception to the rules the public must obey. The church can broadcast music and speeches of biannual conferences on the plaza, for instance, or hand out leaflets.

"It's clearly giving a preference to one organization," he said. "Imagine the outcry if this property had been bought by the Catholic diocese and they imposed restrictions."

Mormon church officials declined comment yesterday.

It's their land, City Attorney Roger Cutler said, defending the church's right to control its own property. He said church leaders initially wanted to close the block to the public, but in a "political" settlement agreed to allow public access.

"They wanted to protect their property from protests, anti-church demonstrations, guns and drunks — which is understandable," Cutler said.

In an interview last month, church President Gordon B. Hinckley said the plaza was part of an effort to keep "the very core" of Salt Lake City "viable and beautiful."

"That's our whole objective in Main Street, to make of this a campus that will be attractive to people all over the world as a place of great beauty and peace and meditation, and looking upon the sweet and good creations of the Lord," he said.

The city has ample precedent for selling streets and alleys for private ownership and development, Cutler said, citing an earlier deal with the church on the underground development rights of a nearby parcel.

"What we've done is entirely legal," Cutler said. "It's not a public park or a street. They bought and paid for it."

The state's population is about 70% Mormon and Temple Square is Utah's top tourist attraction.