McCalip (center) in conversation with the officers who cited him for passing out fliers. Photo by Greggory Moore
When George McCalip was cited by Long Beach police for distributing advertising fliers on public property—a violation of Long Beach Municipal Code Sec. 5.46.060—it was a rare occurrence. Perhaps that’s why the officers got the muni code section wrong on the ticket. It’s not like they get much practice. After all, the Post has learned that during the entirety of 2012, the entire LBPD wrote a total of one citation for the infraction.
If you live in Long Beach, you know that cars are regularly fliered. You know that getting a handbill pretty much shoved in your hand is common. And you know that during major events—the Grand Prix, Gay Pride, etc.—flier distribution might rightly be called rampant. So if the LBPD issued only one citation for the practice all last year, the only possible reason is that officers are turning a blind eye to the practice.
That’s probably for the best, considering that, on the face of it, the ordinance seems unconstitutional (a case McCalip plans on pushing). What seems less okay is that apparently the City wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Because not only may this be a question of having a law on the books that is selectively enforced for whatever reasons—in McCalip’s case, perhaps to please the powerful, as police cited McCalip at the behest of TED Conference security guards—but the City has on occasion required event organizers to print up advertising fliers as a condition of getting an event permit.
Fliers advertising downtown businesses which were open during the Zombie Walk event (left) and the flier McCalip was cited for distributing outside of TED. The QR code linked to deals at nearby businesses.
In late 2011, Dave Ashman–who at the time headed the Bureau of Special Events & Filming–discussed this requirement with the Long Beach Post after Zombie Walk organizer Logan Crow expressed chagrin over being compelled by Special Events to print up 10,000 fliers advertising downtown businesses, which Crow called “an expensive and strange requirement [that] forced [me] to have my event be a commercial.”
Ashman confirmed the requirement, saying that an identical requirement was made of 2011’s Gospel Fest, and that such requirements “are things that commonly happen with special events.”
“I wanted to make sure that the guests attending the Zombie Walk had the ability to make good decisions about other opportunities to enjoy themselves here in the downtown area,” Ashman said at the time, “[… that] they find some way to become involved and stay longer in our area, hopefully adding to the positive economic benefit of having this event in the downtown area. And having an additional list of those possibilities for those people was a good idea. [… B]y giving them other options, we hoped to avoid a negative experience for the people coming to Long Beach to enjoy a good evening of Long Beach hospitality.”
Crow says he has no desire to revisit the issue, noting that this requirement has not been imposed upon him since Zombie Walk 2011, and that the Special Events permitting process has been vastly improved since then. But it is unclear whether Special Events still imposes this requirement on others. Ashman is no longer with the Bureau of Special Events & Filming, and the Bureau did not respond to the Post‘s inquiries regarding whether event organizers are sometimes still required to print up advertising fliers, and whether the requirement was ever cleared with the City Attorney’s Office.