You’ve read them in campy joke books or in mass e-mail forwards: dumb laws. And Oregon has plenty of them.
Whether it’s the silly (in Lebanon, kids cannot race bikes under Ordinance No. 1819), the ridiculous (babies may not be carried on the running boards of a car under 811.205), the probably-covered-by-another-law (a person in a motor vehicle cannot throw a container of human feces on the highway under 811.172), the unenforceable (in Willowdale, it’s illegal for a husband to say “dirty” things during sex) or the vaguely tempting (in Portland, riders of sleds may not attach themselves to passing cars under 16.70.520), 145 years of statehood has given local and state legislators plenty of time to pen loopy laws.
And Eugene is no exception. While it’s illegal to show movies or to attend a car race on a Sunday, as local law dictates, it’s legal to conduct a horse race or a symphony concert.
And try city Ordinance No. 20303: This legislative gem, passed Nov. 24, requires that organizers secure a permit from the nonprofit business consortium Downtown Eugene Inc. for any event that “is likely to attract at any one time an assembly of more than 25 persons” in the “downtown activity zone.” The downtown activity zone is defined as the publicly owned property and rights-of-way located within the area bounded by the centerlines of Sixth and 11th avenues and Lincoln and High streets, including all public improvements therein — an area of 30 square blocks. These provisions actually extend those of a 10-year-old ordinance that has evidently gone largely unenforced.
The Eugene City Council voted 5-2 for this logistically and constitutionally unsound legal snippet. From a constitutional viewpoint, the rule seems to prevent 100 people from peacefully gathering to protest a federal law at the courthouse, or a 26-student group looking from standing on a corner for 10 minutes, deciding where to have dinner, or any group of more than 25 people who are exercising their own constitutional rights to free assembly and speech (and not infringing on others’) in the “activity zone” without acquiring a permit.
While officials have said that locals can trust DEI to respect rights to assemble and speak, it’s far better that fundamental rights have no legal context for potential infringement than the assurances of a governmental institution — or in this case, and more absurdly, a private and commercial, albeit nonprofit, organization — that those powers won’t be used “unfairly.”
Certainly, something can be said for the necessity of permits in certain situations. For example, organizers of a park block concert who expect a crowd of 500 should clearly need not only a city permit but also approvals of relevant city officials so that disruption of citizen plans is minimized.
For the sake of philosophical coherence and respect of the Eugene everyman’s rights, the Emerald Editorial Board strongly encourages the City Council to pass an ordinance modifying the Eugene City Code by eliminating this constitutionally dubious provision.