Printing in Wrigleyville
Printing in Wrigleyville
After our Chicago cable TV program, which is weekly on Friday nights at 6pm between July and September this year on channel 21, I stopped at the Addison Red Line stop and put out my blanket across from Wrigley Field to print for the first time my “The Curse is Gone” patch.
My spot was in front of a shuttered Cubs merchandise storefront. The Cubs were scheduled to play the Astros in Houston at 8:40pm our time. It was the beginning of the bar rush on a Friday night. Very few people took a second look. One guy, a Cubs fan by the jersey he wore, told me when I waved one of the first “the Curse is Gone” patches, “I have a hundred of those.”
“Not these!” I said.
It is my humble opinion that this spot is significant legally for two reasons. First, it is just across the street from Wrigley Field. The peddlers’ license municipal code states that there shall be no peddling within 1,000 feet of any sports arena.
Also, the patch could be determined to be ineligible for a speech deferment according to the same code based on the fact that it competes with Cubs merchandise and might be considered to be more commercial than political or artistic. That decision would be made by the City’s Department of Business Affairs and Licensing. The code they would claim to follow is part of the “Speech Permit” section of the peddler’s license. However, the Speech Permit only applies to the ten corners in the loop where speech is permitted in a “prohibited district.” Although Wrigley Field within 1,000 feet is a prohibited district, there is no speech exception for it so this is a pointless discussion. This is what the case of Wienberg v City of Chicago (see links) was about.
Agreements with private property owners or the City accounts for the people selling near the stadium when the Cubs are in town.
Today - nobody cared. Their first drink and how to meet up with their party was much more important. Only one Cubs fan stopped and took a patch with great appreciation before I packed up. Great, I had a pile of patches left to give away in the coming days wherever I could spot a Cubs fan.