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July 4, 2006
Adventures in Petitioning
Daily Gotham
When Mole333 carried a petition for Chris Owens and Bill Batson in Ratnerville, things got interesting (emphasis added):
We petitioned in front of Pathmark. Response was okay but not great. The most interesting response, though, was from Ratner's employees. We were infomed (politely) that we couldn't petition there. Maybe they didn't like my DDDB T-shirt. When I told them that city law allows me to petition in a public place I was informed that Ratner owned the whole area (this was on the sidewalk along Atlantic Ave) and that he was the "biggest guy around." When I said he wasn't above the law, the employee wanted to argue, though reluctantly admitted that the law might apply to Ratner. Finally I told him that I didn't want a problem so I would check with the police. He backed off and called his supervisor...who said I was within my rights to petition along Atlantic Avenue. The Ratner employee was very polite and apologized, but it was very typical that there seemed doubt that the law applied to Ratner. Let's face it, Bloomberg and Pataki have exempted him from so many State and Local laws that it is no wonder Ratner and his people might view him as being above the law.
Posted by lumi at July 4, 2006 9:10 PM