City delays banner plane law

Jose Paul Corona

City officials say they will not enforce a new law for three weeks

that would ban aerial advertisement over Huntington Beach. They are

waiting until a judge hears a suit brought against the city alleging

the law violates 1st Amendment rights.

“We wanted to make sure that we had enough time to fully brief the

issues raised in the suit,” Assistant City Atty. Scott Field said of

delaying the law. “If we hadn’t done it quite this way, we might not

have had only a few days to respond, that would not have been

acceptable.”

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, a national anti-abortion group,

is suing the city claiming that a law passed by the City Council on

Sept. 2 and set to take effect this week limits its right to free

speech.

“When a city tries to ban an entire medium of expression, they are

going to violate the 1st Amendment,” said the group’s attorney,

Robert Muise. “At least now [my client’s] rights are protected until

we have a hearing.”

The group uses planes to get its anti-abortion message across

because traditional advertising methods are not available, said Gregg

Cunningham, center director and founder in a previous interview.

Newspapers, magazines and TV stations have refused to air the

group’s advertisements because of the graphic nature of the ads,

which depict aborted fetuses.

“The media is not very fond of the pro-life movement,” Muise said.

“[The media is] very had pressed to get these type of pictures into

the mass media.”

The group has used trucks with 7-foot high and 21-foot wide

billboards with increasing frequency since the law was introduced.

Those trucks often circle local middle and high schools. By filing

the suit, the group hopes to send a message to other cities that are

considering similar laws, Cunningham has said.

Cunningham is in England and could not be reached for comment.

Residents have protested the advertisements and have asked the

council to take action on the matter.

City attorneys are confident that the city will prevail in the

case because the law doesn’t target content, said Councilwoman Connie

Boardman.

“They seemed to have the idea that the ordinance was targeting

them,” Boardman said. “[But] it’s about the noise.”

The law was passed in response to years of complaints from

residents about unbearable noise pollution from the planes in the

summer months. Boardman introduced the ordinance to the council after

hearing of a similar law passed by the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, that

was upheld by the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The group sent a letter to the council stating its intentions to

sue before the law was passed, Boardman said. The letter was

considered when discussing the ordinance, but the council felt that

the law would hold up in court if the city was sued, she added.

“People threaten litigation all the time,” Field said. “Frankly we

can’t react to everything that people threaten.”

A full hearing on the matter is expected to take place early next

month, said Diane Turner, the city’s public information officer.

“We are confident when the facts are presented that the court will

find that the ordinance is constitutional,” Field said.