While buying a $349 statue of Harvey Milk may help to keep his ideals alive [Political Notebook, August 5] I would like to suggest another way to do that �" vote no on Proposition L, the anti-sit/lie law on the November ballot. Harvey himself organized and fought against an earlier version of this very same law when he was alive.
Prop L will make it illegal for every woman, man, and child in our city to sit or lie down on any sidewalk, anywhere, even if they are not blocking that sidewalk. It is a poorly written law that will result in a diminution of everyone's civil and human rights.
Prop L proponents claim it is needed to make our sidewalks safe and "civil." However, there are already dozens of laws on the books governing the very activities that the law is supposed to stop. This includes laws against blocking sidewalks, groups encamping on sidewalks, dangerous dogs attacking passersby, and harassment of pedestrians.
The police have said they need a complaint before any of those laws can be enforced. This is simply not true. A report by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights dated May 10, 2010 conclusively stated that "... neither the text of the laws themselves, nor Police Department General Orders, nor the City Charter requires that an officer receive a citizen complaint to enforce such laws. Moreover, ... San Francisco police officers do, in fact, cite individuals for charges, such as obstructing the sidewalk and aggressive panhandling, without requiring a citizen complaint. When these cases have gone to trial, charges have been sustained against individuals based solely on the testimony of officers."
Police Chief George Gascón says he just wants a new "proactive tool" so police can act before any laws have been broken. When a previous sit/lie law was enacted in San Francisco in 1968 to use against the hippies, the police "proactively" used it to harass and arrest gay men congregating on the sidewalks in the Castro. After successful constitutional challenges, the law was repealed in 1979. The potential for civil rights abuses by the police using this "tool" is obvious and too dangerous to become law in San Francisco.
What this law will do is:
- Make it illegal for day laborers to sit during their hours-long wait for work.
- Criminalize residents who sit down on a chair in front of their own homes.
- Make it illegal for our kids to sit on the sidewalks and play.
- Encourage the police, through selective enforcement, to harass and intimidate poor and homeless people who use the public space of the sidewalk to sit during the day, even when they are not blocking the sidewalk.
Our sidewalks are not just for moving people from one shopping experience to another, as this law would legislate. Sidewalks and streets are shared public space where a multitude of activities take place that creates a community's and city's sense of itself. Before any severe restriction on this valuable public resource is enacted there needs to be a proven need for that restriction. Despite numerous requests from several governmental bodies, Prop L's backers have never been able to provide any documented evidence that this law is needed. That was one of several reasons why eight members of the Board of Supervisors, including Supervisor Bevan Dufty, voted against this law.
The upshot is Prop L will make our streets less civil for the vast majority of San Francisco residents and visitors. Through its broadness, sit/lie gives the police the ability to target any of us who use public space.
Prop L is bad law. Its backers intend it to be used to harass and intimidate poor and homeless people in order to chase them off our streets and out of the city. It does nothing to provide services or care, it creates a whole new class of criminals to fill the courts and jails, and it criminalizes all of us. Let us keep Harvey Milk's ideals alive by fighting against the injustices he fought against. Please vote no on Prop L. And if you really want to spend $349 to carry on Milk's ideals, check out the donation page at www.sidewalksareforpeople.org.
Joey Cain was co-chairman of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee and is the current president of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council.