re: trip to Washington, part deux

I was also able to meet some of IJ's clients this past weekend. One of them was Dennis Ballen, Head Bagel (i.e. owner) at Blazing Bagels in Redmond, Washington. Ballen went to IJ seeking help on a First Amendment case. Basically, the city of Redmond will not let him use a simple sign to advertise the location of his store and its serving of fresh bagels. Conveniently, however, Redmond does allow such commercial adverstising for realtors as well as political and local government advertisements. IJ's stance is that

Small businesses use signs to communicate with their customers and their right to do so is protected by the Washington State and U.S. constitutions. The U.S. Supreme Court is wary of regulations that burden inexpensive forms of communication, finding that they are “essential to the poorly financed causes of little people,” [footnote to Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York v. Village of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150, 163 (2002)] and government regulation of speech through the enactment of laws, such as Redmond’s sign ordinance, must comply with constitutional free speech guarantees. Redmond’s sign ordinance violates the Washington and U.S. constitutions in two ways. It is an invalid regulation of commercial speech and it improperly discriminates against certain forms of speech based solely on the content of the speech.

I agree. And when it comes to state tax breaks and incentives, the Head Bagel agrees with me. It gives me a bit of confidence to know that small business owners like Dennis Ballen are aware of the problem. Unfortunately, the problems discussed in this blog are not theoretical but are far too real. Here is a link to a Seattle Times editorial on the Ballen's case against Redmond.