FreeSAM Artist Supports the Cubs Gear Vendors
FreeSAM Artist Supports
the Cubs Gear Vendors
Alderman Tunney’s proposes to add to the areas where vending is prohibited in Chicago. His changes will be the death of the peddler of Cubs gear in the area of Wrigleyville. Less peddlers, less variety, higher prices. As an artist defending the right of artists to sell their art in public I support the peddlers because in Chicago artists are thrown in with non-speech peddlers. We require the same peddlers license to sell our art.
Not all laws passed are legal. In 1994 Daley pushed through a revised peddlers license which took artists’ First Amendment right to sell art on the streets away by requiring artists to also get a peddlers license. Artists and non-speech peddlers are now bound by the same rules. The ugliest rules are the three pages of prohibited districts in the peddlers license municipal code that have no bearing on traffic patterns. “Prohibited Districts” relate to the political desires of those behind the Alderman for the wards they are in. Broad laws banning speech like this are unconstitutional. Non-speech peddlers are not protected by the First Amendment - artists are!
Is the selling of baseball gear a non-speech activity? Should it be protected as a First Amendment right? As a business activity, without the protection of the First Amendment, it is but a privilege and able to be regulated much more easily than the sale of speech. Art is speech.
Is baseball not an expression of community pride and self-identity for the fan? Is the right to express yourself as a Cubs fan in the greatest possible variety of legal ways to be defended under our constitution as a speech right? Should there be a place for community-artist developed designs in Wrigleyville? Can we ask the baseball fans themselves what they think?
The Cubs loving public will suffer less variety and higher prises. Chicago will have less character in Wrigleyville with independent vendors out of the way. The gradual expansion of the prohibited districts will continue in Chicago until someone asks why. Why are we eliminating people’s opportunity for survival at a time when more need even a street sales gig to get by. Should the privilege of business owners be allowed to violate the rights of artists and eliminate the jobs of many for the benefit of the few?
It is our claim that in Chicago, until we artists stand up for our First Amendment rights to sell our art in public, no one else will be able to sell much in public. I support the Wrigleyville vendors. I hope they will unite with the Cubs fans to demand Alderman Tunney support what is best for people and fans. Artists – we too should stand up against this peddlers license abuse of our speech rights.