FREE SPEECH — The Press-Enterprise in Riverside reports that Riverside County supervisors today suspended enforcement of a newly approved picketing ordinance, backed by the Church of Scientology, and instructed county staff to return in one month with clearer rules.
"I want to make things easier and simpler for everyone involved, particularly for the sheriff which has to enforce it," Supervisor Bob Buster said of the picketing ordinance. "We don't want to pass ordinances that are used in an incorrect way to … intimidate people from exercising their rights."
Last week, supervisors fast-tracked and unanimously approved an ordinance prohibiting picketing within 50 feet of the property line of a targeted residence, with the exception of a sidewalk across a street. They also passed an urgency ordinance that put the picketing rules into effect immediately in unincorporated Riverside County.
The Church of Scientology has pushed for the ordinance in order to limit sporadic protests outside its sprawling base in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet.
Tuesday's unanimous decision followed a demonstration outside the base last week that led to Scientologists calling sheriff's deputies and uncertainty over whether the new ordinance applied.
Last week, supervisors fast-tracked and unanimously approved an ordinance prohibiting picketing within 50 feet of the property line of a targeted residence, with the exception of a sidewalk across a street. They also passed an urgency ordinance that put the picketing rules into effect immediately in unincorporated Riverside County.
The Church of Scientology has pushed for the ordinance in order to limit sporadic protests outside its sprawling base in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet.
Tuesday's unanimous decision followed a demonstration outside the base last week that led to Scientologists calling sheriff's deputies and uncertainty over whether the new ordinance applied.
Wow, by their own account, all protesters were gay and two of them HIV+. Obviously they themselves are the source of this information. But that’s beside the point. These people try to claim a “right” to harass members of Scientology at their home, with yelling, shouting, blowing horns and covered by masks. This ordinance procedure has been made a farce by the likes of “Angry Gay Pope” (the screaming one on the photo), “Happy Smurf” and a wannabe lawyer called Berry.