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Okay, need some help with a festival.

RedKnightt

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As part of my day job, I enter local events onto our company website. This includes fairs/festivals/etc. While checking out a website, I noticed they were having a festival in a city park and had "no firearms" in their lists of rules. I remember that last year or the year before, several folks found a similar rule on a website for Celebrate Fairfax (I think) and got it taken down.

I want to contact the festival folks for this one and do the same, but I can't for the life of me find it in the search function so I can shamelessly use the citations and forms the others used. Anyone remember this or have better search-fu than I do?
 

RedKnightt

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Paragon wrote:
Is this the one you were looking for? Also, if you type "site:eek:pencarry.mywowbb.com/forum54 celebrate Fairfax" into Google (without the quotes) it will search the VA forum for "Celebrate Fairfax."



http://opencarry.mywowbb.com/forum54/11297-1.html
I thought that was it, but I'm apparently wrong. The thread I (mis?)remember had a couple of good letters complete with citations. I guess I'll just have to compile it myself :D.
 

Grapeshot

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IMHO - the only citation you need is state preemption.

Simply quoting the statute and requesting that they remove the reference to no firearms should be enough.

Yata hey
 

TFred

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Grapeshot wrote:
IMHO - the only citation you need is state preemption.

Simply quoting the statute and requesting that they remove the reference to no firearms should be enough.

Yata hey
You might also mention that not only will they certainly lose a court case should it come to that, after July 1st, they may very well be liable for paying the costs of the plaintiffs too!

TFred
 

ed

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I wote them an e-mail and asked them to remove it from their website.. they never responded to my e-mail but they took it off the website.. What event/website are you talking about?

Ed
 

skidmark

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RedKnightt wrote:
Can everyone please hold off on writing the city until we get a response from the event people first?

I understand your desire to let the event people (Red Cross) correct the problem on their own.

The difficulty is that the Red Cross has a national policy against firearms. I'm betting they will not back down, citing the national policy.

The city has a responsibility to see that folks that get a permit to hold an event in a public park do not violate the law. They have a liability issue, regardless of what the Rec Cross wants.

It is only fair to allow the city to protect itself from liability that the Red Cross is trying to foist on them via a backdoor route.

Just like the event in Pennsylvania, the Red Cross could either find private property for their event or accept that their PSH is just that and accept that good folks carrying open or concealed were never a threat. IIRC there was no blood in the park at that event anyway (to the chagrin and disappointment of the Red Cross).

stay safe.

skidmark
 

ed

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Well my letters to the City attorney and town council have opened up a firestorm of e-mail between us.. I will keep you informed. (One guy even remembered me from last year). It might take someone being arrested and having Alexandra learn the "Norfolk Lesson™"

Ed
 

skidmark

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Look at the next to last paragraph here http://alexandriava.gov/recreation/info/default.aspx?id=12288#park

Apparently the city thinks it can give a use permit that excludes all others but the permittee, if it is a commercial or fundraising event.

Somehow I think that is just not right, but I'll have to ponder it a bit.

In the meantime, even if the Red Cross has a permit that allows exclusive use of the area for their event, I do not see how the city can allow the violation of state law as part of the permit-issuing process. (That is entirely separate from the Red Cross and their policy regarding handguns, so do not get confused between the two.)

Let's go ahead and say the Red Cross can deny entrance to anyone who "merely" wants to enjoy the park area covered in their use permit, but does not want to participate in any of the fundraising activities such as looking at exhibits/literature, listening to music/speeches, or anything in any way related to the Red Cross fundraising event. Can they also selectively deny entrance to someone who want to participate in the fundraising event, even at the most minimal level? In other words, could they deny entrance based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, orreligion any more than they could based on someone legally OC-ing or CC-ing in the park?

Could the city allow the Red Cross to deny entrance to any of the other groups mentioned? Would the city want to allow the Red Cross to do that?

Ed & others trying to deal with the city or the Red Cross - keep up the pressure. Use my thoughts as you see fit to toss them at the city or Red Cross.

stay safe.

skidmark

skidmark
 

ed

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In a message dated 5/22/2009 5:37:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Ed writes to Mr. Speara and CC's the Alex Cheif of Police:

Mr. Spera -

I agree again on most of what you have to say. The city is allowing a private entity to use a piece of public land for a private event. I get that. The city does not however have the authorization to break the law, even for a short time or for a small piece of public property. I just want us both to be clear with each other. If I so choose to attend this event, while armed, and get refused access or detained/arrested or otherwise have my rights violated I wanted to be sure that you were notified by me of the illegal ban. A similar situation in the city of Norfolk has costthe taxpayers there a hefty sum of money.

Thanks again,

Ed Levine


In a message dated 5/22/2009 4:54:22 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Christopher.Spera@alexandriava.gov writes:
It is public property that the City is allowing a private operator to use,
essentially as a lease, for a short period of time. As such, the private
operator can control terms of access during its period of use - for
example, certain parks that are normally open to the public will be
restricted during this same period of use and people will have to pay the
festival entry fee to go in, even though on non-festival days, access is
open to the public. Basically, the City has agreed, as it is authorized by
its charter to do, to let a private operator use public property for a
short period of time and control access during that time for its event,
based upon the City's view that allowing such use is beneficial to the City
and the community as a whole and is otherwise in the public interest.
Nothing in the State Code section you reference prevents this.

This is the City's position on this matter; you are certainly free to
disagree, but both the City and the Red Cross, who is operating the event,
will proceed based on this position.

*******************************************

Christopher P. Spera, Esq.
Deputy City Attorney
Office of the City Attorney
301 King Street, Suite 1300
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3211
(703) 838-4433
 

ed

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skidmark wrote:
I do not see how the city can allow the violation of state law as part of the permit-issuing process.
Maybe we could rent out a piece of Alexandra to have a one night brothel with gambling and stuff and just say on our website "Please bring Brother tokens and cash" It might violate state law but not on our little piece of Private property that we rented. While we rent it we would also make a no tax paying rule and other cool stuff too.

:banghead:
 

ed

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From: Christopher.Spera@alexandriava.gov
To: Ed
CC: david.baker@alexandriava.gov
Sent: 5/22/2009 6:10:23 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Re: http://www.waterfrontfestival.org/info.html

My assumption is that if you try and enter the event in violation of their
posted rules, you will be refused entry by the event staff. The City
does not believe that the private operator's refusal to grant you entry
would be wrongful, but that is what courts are for if you believe your
rights were violated.

*******************************************

Christopher P. Spera, Esq.
Deputy City Attorney
Office of the City Attorney
301 King Street, Suite 1300
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3211
(703) 838-4433
 
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