Chapter 13 — TARGETED RESIDENTIAL PICKETING

The City Council of the City of Downey finds and declares as follows:

• (a) Section VII of Article XI of the California Constitution provides that a city may make and enforce within its limits all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.

• (b) Demonstrators and protestors have a right, protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, to express their views and to convey their message to both a general audience and a particularly targeted audience.

• (c) Individuals and groups have a right to engage in demonstrations and protests on public streets and sidewalks within residential areas.

• (d) In recent years, an increasing number of demonstrations and protests in the City of Downey and surrounding areas have targeted specific residences.

• (e) Those demonstrations and protests have involved individuals congregating on residential sidewalks and within streets and roadways immediately adjacent to a targeted residence (and, at times, on the private property of the targeted residence), and expressing their views by shouting and chanting at the targeted residence and captive audience therein.

• (f) This particular form of expression inherently and offensively intrudes on residential privacy, disturbs the tranquility of the community members living in the targeted residence, threatens their privacy, and can cause them to suffer significant emotional and even physical distress in their own homes.

• (g) The City Council must balance the rights of residents and demonstrators to ensure that both groups' rights are respected and fulfilled.

• (h) In Carey v. Brown (1980) 447 US 455, the United States Supreme Court confirmed that the government's protection of the "well-being, tranquility, and privacy of the home is certainly of the highest order in a free and civilized society" and that preserving "the sanctity of the home, the one retreat to which men and women can repair to escape from the tribulations of their daily pursuits, is surely an important value."

• (i) In Frisby v. Schultz (1988) 487 US 474, the United States Supreme Court concluded that "There simply is no right to force speech into the home of an unwilling listener" and that the "devastating effect of targeted picketing on the quiet enjoyment of the home is beyond doubt."

• (j) In order to safeguard both groups' rights, the Council must ensure that targeted picketing may occur within the community but that such picketing does not force residents to become captive audiences to unwanted speech within their own homes.

• (k) Establishing a distance which must be maintained between residential dwellings and demonstrators targeting those dwellings will serve both those ends.

• (l) In City of San Jose v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County (1995) 21 Cal.App.4th 330, the Court of Appeal for the 6th District, upheld an ordinance of the City of San Jose prohibiting targeted residential picketing within 300 feet of the targeted residential dwelling.

• (m) This ordinance is not intended to be applied, construed, or given effect in a manner that precludes or restricts the expression of views in a residential neighborhood through picketing or demonstrations which do not target particular residential residences or occupants therein.

• (n) The distance restriction for targeted picketing proposed within this Ordinance preserves ample alternative channels of communication for protestors and demonstrators to disseminate their message(s) and/or idea(s).

• (o) The ordinance codified in this chapter is a necessary time, place, and manner restriction, intended to reconcile and protect the needs and rights of protestors to peacefully and effectively communicate their views, and residents to enjoy privacy and respite in their homes.

(Added by Ord. 21-1472, adopted 11-16-21)

For purposes of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply.

"Residential dwelling" shall mean any permanent building situated in the City of Downey that is being used by its occupants solely for non-transient residential purposes.

"Targeted picketing" shall mean picketing activity that is directed at a particular residential dwelling or one or more occupants of a particular residential dwelling, and that occurs at a particular location and/or which proceeds on a definite course or route in front of or around that particular dwelling.

(Added by Ord. 21-1472, adopted 11-16-21)

• (a) No person shall engage in targeted picketing within three hundred feet (300′) of the residential dwelling that is the subject of the targeted picketing.

  • (1) For purposes of this section, the distance shall be measured from the outer walls of the residential structure. An attached garage shall be considered part of the residential structure.

• (b) This section does not and shall not be interpreted to preclude picketing in a residential area that is not targeted at a particular residential dwelling or dwellings.

• (Added by Ord. 21-1472, adopted 11-16-21)

• (a) Any person who is aggrieved by an act prohibited by this chapter may bring an action for damages and/or declaratory relief, as appropriate, in a court of competent jurisdiction against any person who has conspired to violate, or proposes to violate, this chapter.

• (b) Any aggrieved person who prevails in such an action shall be entitled to recover from the violator those damages, costs, attorneys' fees and such other relief as determined by the

Court. In addition to all other damages or relief, the Court may award to the aggrieved person a civil penalty of up to one thousand dollars for each violation of this chapter. (Added by Ord. 21-1472, adopted 11-16-21)

(a) Any violation of this chapter is hereby declared to be a public nuisance. (Added by Ord. 21-1472, adopted 11-16-21)