Bad News: First Amendment Threat. Good News: Summer Sex, Romance, Ballgames, Beaches...

Summer of Love

First the bad news: If you enjoy picking up New York Press?or any other papers?from a streetbox on the corner, this summer you may have to fight for your First Amendment right to read us. In a misdirected excess of "quality-of-life" activism, a minority of anal retentives is threatening to remove streetboxes, along with newsstands, from this city.

The Transportation Committee of the City Council is currently considering draft legislation, "Intro 14-A," a misguided and, we believe, unconstitutional proposal that could sweep hundreds of boxes from the sidewalks and greatly limit your access to New York Press?along with The New York Times, the Village Voice, The Onion, HX and so on. The bill, introduced by City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz (who represents the Upper East Side, midtown east and Central Park S.), would give the City's Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall broad new powers to reduce and regulate streetboxes.

Along with proposed new size restrictions, which would not affect New York Press boxes but would apparently make those of the Voice and The Onion illegal, the draft legislation stipulates that boxes cannot be located "within fifteen feet of any fire hydrant," or "in any curb cut designed to facilitate street access by disabled persons or within two feet of any such curb cut," or "within fifteen feet of the entrance or exit of any railway station or subway station," or "within any bus stop" and numerous other restrictions.

One confused passage states that "Every newsrack [i.e., streetbox] shall be weighted down in a manner that will ensure that such newsrack cannot be tipped over." Then, in the next sentence, it says "except with the express written consent of the commissioner, in no event shall a newsrack be bolted to the sidewalk or chained or otherwise anchored by or affixed to any personal or real property owned by the city?"

At its most ominously open-ended, the bill would force publishers to register every box with Commissioner Weinshall, and grants her effectively open authority to "promulgate any rule or rules relating to setting criteria to ensure the unobstructed flow of pedestrian passage?"

We don't have to tell you what can happen when any city official is given powers that broad and vague. Politicians and bureaucrats should never be allowed to regulate the free distribution of news. The temptation for powerful city officials to punish any publication that has been critical of the government by making it inaccessible to its market will be well-nigh irresistible. This precedent has already been set in San Francisco, where the notoriously anti-newspaper Mayor Willie Brown has been very enthusiastic about backing similar regulations against streetboxes under the falsely benign guise of "cleaning up the streets." Publishers in other cities around the country are under similar pressure.

New York Press could be forced to remove as many as 300 boxes from city streets if this legislation is passed as is. Other papers could lose as many or more. And publishers' rights to place any new boxes on the streets could be reduced to nil.

Meanwhile, both New York Press and the Village Voice have experienced a "coincidental" rise in theft of streetboxes over the past few months. A certain level of streetbox attrition is common; bums make homes of them, drunks vandalize them, bad drivers jump the curb and smash them. But a sudden recent increase in disappearances in a few areas around Manhattan has resembled a coordinated effort. Could clean-the-sidewalks neighborhood or business groups be turning to illegal vigilantism? The NYPD has been notified.

It's not just streetboxes that are threatened. As The New York Times recently reported, the city's moving to reduce (and eventually eradicate?) commercial newsstands as well.

Our interest in stemming this awful trend is obvious?but so is yours. It's a violation of publishers' First Amendment right to publish and distribute, and your First Amendment right to read the newspapers and magazines of your choice. Readers would still be able to find New York Press in restaurants, shops, lobbies and other off-street locations throughout the city. But that's poor compensation for the negative impact this legislation would have on precisely the "quality of life" in New York City. Streetboxes and newsstands have long been integral facets of the city's vibrant, busy street life. A New York City without a wealth of periodicals easily available to its avid newshound citizens is unthinkable. It will be a great disservice to the majority of New Yorkers if a handful of politicians, bureaucrats and neighborhood busybodies, in yet another wrongheaded effort to transform New York City into their bland vision of a safe, orderly Oshkosh-by-the-Sea, is allowed to rob you of your access to print information and entertainment.

The Transportation Committee currently expects to put the bill up for a vote on June 29. Councilman John C. Liu (D-Queens), who chairs the committee, can be reached at 718-888-8747 or via e-mail at liu@council.nyc.ny.us. To reach Councilwoman Moskowitz, call 818-0580 or e-mail moskowitz@council.nyc.ny.us. DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall is at 676-0868,