Back Off, San Clemente Council Tells Pickets

Pretty soon, protesters won’t be able to target specific residences from less than 200 feet away. 

The ordinance is meant to discourage picketing targeted at a specific residence, which has happened regarding  members and labor issues.

Councilman Tim Brown said the ordinance didn’t go far enough, but City Attorney Jeffery Oderman said that if the rule mandated any more than 200 feet, a judge might strike it down as a First Amendment violation.

Most recently, in April, members of Painters & Allied Trades District Council 36 inflated a giant rat in the back of a pickup truck in front of the home of Eliot Schneider, owner of GPS Painting and Wallcovering in Santa Ana.

The union was angry that Schneider’s 60 employees left the union, and he had been involved in litigation with the group, according to the San Clemente Times.

Both Schneider and Bill Quisenberry of the union spoke at the council meeting. Quisenberry was against the new rule.

“This is an outright infringement of our and everybody else’s First Amendment rights,” Quisenberry said.

Schneider argued that the pickets intimidated his wife and child and that his place of business was the appropriate place to picket.

“This is a Sunday, this is a large rat in front of my house,” he said. “I mean, this is insane.”

City Manager George Scarborough said the rule was careful not to discriminate about what the protests are about.

“This is not limited to labor picketing,” he said. “It doesn’t distinguish based on the content of the picketing. I think that would be a violation of First Amendment rights as well.”

The new ordinance, which will be signed into law assuming the council again approves it on second reading, would not actually preclude the union from inflating the giant rat in a legally parked vehicle that was parked in front of Schnieder’s home, however. It only involves people protesting within the 200-foot radius.

“We’re merely protecting the sanctity of a residential area,” said Lt. Paul D’Auria, chief of San Clemente Police Services.

He said similar ordinances in places such as Riverside County had stood up in court.