Tell Me What You Think About This

[Daniepwils]

What do you all think about a law making it illegal to picket in or near residential areas?

One of my biggest issues is picketing in or near residential areas, kind of what the Keys Middle School parents are doing at the HISD superintendents' house. I do not think anyone should be allowed under any circumstance to do this. You are interrupting peoples personal life and that is not fair! -- my huge problem was last year when the cleaning crews were picketing for better wages until 10 and 11 pm at night, they were picketing a block away from where I live and I came home around 9 and went to HPD headquarters and asked to file a complaint, they said I could not!

I have sent letters to Rep. Jackson and Mayor White and have yet to hear from them, other than a fake letter from them emailed to me, saying they care about my complaint.

I understand people have personal issues such as these at times, and picketing at the appropriate business is fine, however when it affects other peoples personal space (noise space in this sense) there is a problem.

Am I out of line in assuming this is wrong?

[musicman]

there are laws now that could be used to minimize your concern. hindering traffic flow, high noise levels, etc. BUT enforcement would be left to the discretion of the officer. When it is left to the discretion of the officer, not everyone will be satisfied.

[tmariar]

Along the same lines as Musicman's response...

There are laws to protect residents in their homes from certain disturbances - laws against disturbing the peace, excessive noise, public intoxication, lewdness, trespassing, etc. To the extent that these laws are objective (e.g., those involving property lines and decibel levels), my guess is that most protests do not violate them and that they would be enforced by police. To the extent that the scope of their application is left to the discretion of police officers, however, I can imagine that police officers would be less inclined to enforce such laws against those engaged in "political" speech on a short-term basis than in some other circumstances (e.g., a club that is a routine neighborhood nuisance). Especially if the protesters obtained a demonstration permit of some kind (I'm not saying that the janitors had a permit or that any permit would cover all possible disturbances - just that the fact that some permit was obtained might be taken into consideration in such a situation). If you live downtown, that may also have been a factor - I think different standards regarding disturbing the peace might be applied in downtown vs. a purely residential neighborhood.

I don't think that non-targets of the demonstrators have any more legal protections in these situations than targets of the demonstrators - I think the bottom-line issue is whether any law is being violated. If the janitors were violating the law, I do think it was wrong for the police to ignore your complaint. (For what it's worth, janitors typically work at night, and often have day jobs in addition to their night jobs, and so some may not have been able to protest other than at night.)

As for the HISD superintendent - without taking any position on the underlying dispute - I'm guessing that the protesters believe that he has done things to interrupt their personal lives.